“Look around,” Zane suggested. “Split up. Check every corner.”
Slowly, the three began to circle the arrangement of scattered furniture, expanding in wider and wider arcs. James bent at the waist, his eyes wide, scanning the blocks of the stone floor, scrutinizing every crevice. Soon enough, he found himself moving around the portal arches and their drifting curtains. He realized that each portal emitted a faint noise: a low ribbon of whisper-song, like that which he’d fancied hearing in the grass of the plateau.
He kept a distance from them while examining around them as close as possible. Was it possible that the brooch and thread had rolled through one of the portals? Surely, the dimensional gateways only worked on living things, didn’t they?
Still bent at the waist, studying the cracks of the floor, he nearly bumped right into Zane.
“It’s not looking good,” the blond boy whispered. “Something or someone must have gotten here before us.”
James didn’t want to admit that his friend might be right. In the pit of his stomach, however, he had the faintest, teasing sense of another presence in the castle. Not Judith this time, but a deepening sense of being observed. He glanced around helplessly.
Petra’s voice rang from across the room, waking a stir of echoes in the high ceilings. “Found it!” she cried happily. “It was right here all along! It fell into one of the partially open dresser drawers and—”
The stone floor suddenly shook, so hard and violently that it kicked both Zane and James right off their feet. They fell backwards onto the stone blocks, which cracked all around them. Deep crevices appeared and snaked away in every direction, bursting with sharp grit.
The entire castle seemed to sway at the ferocity of the quake. Deep, startled groans and creaks filled the room as dust sifted down, clouding the dark air.
“Petra Morganstern,” a massive, booming voice announced, echoing so broadly that it vibrated in every surface.
James recognized the voice, and his stomach seemed to plummet all the way through the floor.
Light blared, illuminating the cavernous room like a flash of purple lightning, etching perfectly black shadows behind every pillar and archway, turning every spreading crack into a chasm.
Zane grabbed James’ arm, clutching tight.
“It’s Merlin!” he said, his voice thin in the disastrous noise.
In the centre of the floor, a figure stood tall, holding a staff aloft in its right hand. The staff burned with purple fire, roaring dully and emitting that blinding, cold glow. Beyond it, turning to face the sudden shape, Petra squared her shoulders, closing her fist over the brooch and thread in her right hand.
“Headmaster,” she said calmly, and her own voice reverberated throughout the room, though clear as crystal bells. “You shouldn’t have come. I don’t want to end you.”
“Nor I you,” Merlin declared with sincere regret. “I was summoned the moment you touched the thread, as rite of my guardianship of both you and our world. Give the thread to me.
Return with me as your ally, not your warden.”
Petra was shaking her head. “You can’t hold the thread. Only I can. Because I now belong to the world and the dimension that it came from. Please, don’t oppose me.”
James still had his wand in his hand. He aimed it at Merlin’s broad back, not even sure what spell he meant to cast. Zane grabbed his wrist and pushed it upright, however.
“What are you doing?” he rasped in James’ ear. “We can’t fight Merlin! We brought knives to a gun fight!”
“Let me go!” James insisted, struggling, but it was too late. A shockwave of magical energy bowled both boys backwards, emanating from the point where Merlin’s and Petra’s powers suddenly collided.
James struggled against the force of it, but it was a constant blast, streaming through his hair and battering at his clothing. He pushed laboriously to his feet against the howling gust and strained his eyes, desperate to see. Even as he did so, however, a wave of debilitating, inexplicable weakness washed over him. The world turned grey and he felt himself swaying, as if some secret force were sucking his energy away.
Zane grabbed him, holding him upright as James’ knees went loose beneath him.
Across from them, Petra and Merlin were locked in sudden battle, she with her right arm outstretched, palm open, he with his staff extended fell length. Connecting between them, dual bolts of blinding energy converged and obliterated each other, creating the constant magical gale. Petra’s power was palest blue, blasting like shards of ice.
Merlin’s was electric purple, crackling with forks of lightning.
At the point where both bolts collided, terminating each other in apocalyptic annihilation, a tiny shape floated, revolving slowly in midair.
It was the brooch with the thread twined tightly around it. As James watched, weakened and dreamy, the shape twitched, first jerking back toward Petra, and then lobbing again toward Merlin, locked in shifting stalemate.
They were fighting over it, engaged in a devastating tug-of-war.
James had a moment to marvel: if this is how powerful Petra and Merlin were when separated from their elements—her from the city, and him from nature—then James and Zane were very fortunate indeed. They surely could not have survived otherwise.
And yet James himself felt strangely wasted, like a husk, drained and withering. He drew a gasping breath, willing himself back into motion. Clumsily, he broke free of Zane and trained his wand on Merlin again, hoping that he could distract him, if nothing else. He chose a disarming spell, spoke it as loud as he could, but the wand in his hand didn’t so much as spark.
“It’s no good!” Zane called against the torrent of magic and the quake of the castle. “They’re drawing their power from every source, including our wands! There’s nothing left for us!”
They’re not just draining power from our wands, James thought.
She, at least, is draining it from me. From the invisible cord that connects us. I’m her battery!
“GO!” Petra’s voice suddenly blared, so loud and ringing that it shivered the air, setting up harmonics of reverberation in the very stones and blocks of the castle.
“She means us!” Zane cried, grabbing again at James’ arm. “The whole place is coming down!”
James felt it now. The floor was canting disastrously, tilting further at every moment. The pillars creaked and leaned, beginning to topple as if in slow motion. And still James couldn’t break his eyes away from Petra.
“We have to save her!” he shouted, and bolted forward, mustering every ounce of strength he could. He didn’t know what he meant to do. Perhaps he would merely bowl into Merlin from behind, knocking the big man over. He knew he had about as much chance at that as he did of lifting Hogwarts castle with his pinkie finger, and yet he couldn’t stop himself.
This is exactly how Lucy died, he realized as he ran. The thought was strangely comforting.