He was still ten paces away when it happened.
The brooch, still locked in the conflagration between Petra’s and Merlin’s bolts, began to revolve faster. As it did, the thread unwound from it. It streamed along Petra’s icy stream, stretching toward her, while the brooch spun into a blur, drifting back along Merlin’s purple bolt, drawn toward his power.
The two parts separated with an explosive blast that extinguished both bolts. The thread flung into Petra’s open hand while the brooch streaked toward Merlin. And then both figures were obscured by a thunderclap of rebounding energy.
James flew off his feet and rolled, banging his elbows and knees painfully along the broken floor. A moment later, his face was full of dry grass. He scrambled, not even certain which way was up, and lunged clumsily to his feet on the edge of the plateau, in the shadow of the leaning castle.
His strength had returned to him, but he barely noticed. The noise of the blast had not diminished. It grew, and James realized why.
Slowly, disastrously, the castle was toppling over the cliff. It’s black turrets and spires still towered above him, but seemed to lean slowly backwards, crumbling into a gentle blur as every brick began to separate, every window dissolved out of true, every cone of its roof began to implode in on itself.
Zane’s voice was a thin wail against the roar. “James!” he called, scrambling out of the collapsing ruin and waving both hands frantically.
“Run! Run!”
“Petra!” James shouted, convulsively stumbling into the descending shadow.
But then there she was. Pillars collapsed and shattered behind her as she pelted forward, her face smudged with grime, her jeans torn, showing the bloody scrapes of her pumping knees.
James reached for her, grabbed her hand as she lost her balance and began to fall. He tugged her forward, even as the castle utterly gave way behind her, contracting in on itself and descending beyond the plateau like a vertical freight train, taking much of the cliff with it.
“Go!” Petra panted as James pulled her onward, onto the hissing grass. “It’s not over! He’s still coming! GO!”
She struggled to regain her footing and pelted onward, now pulling James along beside her.
Behind them, an explosion of dull grey water, as high and broad as a mountain, roared into the air, blotting out the dull sky and casting gloom over the plateau.
Zane was running ahead of James and Petra, but glanced back over his shoulder at the noise and the sudden shadow. He stumbled, wide-eyed, and Petra caught his collar with her free hand dragging him forward as well.
Lightning shot prisms from the wall of water, which fell away in torrents now, revealing a bright nucleus beyond. James didn’t have to ask what that nucleus was. The shape descended out of the air and set foot on the rubble of the castle’s former footprint, shaking the entire plateau.
“PETRA MORGANSTERN!” Merlin called in a voice of thunder.
“Run!” Petra panted thinly, breathlessly. “Run!”
The three ran. They ran like they had never run in their entire lives.
They reached the stone stairway and nearly flung themselves over the ledge in their panic. Turning and taking two, even three, steps at a time, they bolted down, following the curve of the cliffs and descending toward the crashing waves below.
Merlin was coming. The plateau shook with the tremor of his footsteps. The light of his staff bloomed back from the low sky, throwing hard, moving shadows into every crack and fissure. Merlin, somehow, was his own battery. And his power, even if only temporary, was still terrible.
Finally, exhausted and panicked, the three stumbled into the cave of the portal.
Only the portal, they now saw as they skidded to a horrified halt, wasn’t there.
James’ eyes boggled in the dimness. He knew what they should have found: the door of Apollo mansion, seen from the inside, hanging open and showing the comforting slope of victory hill and the quadrangle beyond. But there was no open door, no comforting evening light. No escape.
The ground shook. The angle of the purplish light outside changed now, reflecting directly down onto the crashing, heaving waves.
Merlin had reached the stairs.
“Where’s the door?” Zane cried, his voice an octave higher than normal. He stumbled forward and felt around blindly, waving his arms.
“It should be here! This is the spot! Our footprints are still right there from when we arrived! Door, please! Pretty please, with sugar on top!”
A high-pitched, muffled voice suddenly squawked from James’ right side.
“Farty Fopdoodle!”
It was the Duck in his pocket, of course. Frantically, he tugged it out and looked down at it. A single word was now scrawled on it in all capitals: MERLIN!
“Great,” James nodded, stuffing the Duck back into his pocket.
“Real helpful, Rose.”
“He’s had to remove the horseshoe,” Petra said quietly, her eyes thoughtful. “Don had to close the portal for a moment. Someone must have come. He’ll put it back. We just have to wait.”
“I don’t think waiting is going to be an option for much longer!”
Zane exclaimed with manic cheerfulness.
“Come here,” Petra said, reaching out to Zane with her right hand and taking James’ in her left. “We have to be ready.”
Zane came to stand next to Petra, but kept his face to the entrance of the cave. Trembling, he stretched out his wand.
“What’s the best spell to use on a sorcerer?” he asked, his voice cracking glassily.
Petra considered this for a moment as the ground shook.
“What’s the worst spell you know?”
“Umm…!” Zane blinked.
Petra nodded briskly. “Not that one.”
A shadow moved outside the mouth of the cave. Pebbles and grit rained from the ceiling.
In the darkness of the cave, the door of Apollo mansion appeared, blooming with evening glow.
“Now!” James shouted, yanking Petra forward as he lunged. She dragged Zane behind her, even as a shape heaved in front of the cave mouth, blocking the light.
James’ next footstep stumbled onto the porch steps of Apollo mansion. The door slammed behind him as Zane barreled through, nearly bowling him over.
“The horseshoe!” James cried, his breath nearly gone, barely producing a dry croak. “Take it out! Take it out!”
Standing next to the cornerstone, blinking in surprise with his hands still on the silvery shape, Donofrio Odin-Vann plucked the horseshoe from its engraved bed.
The brilliant rose-gold lights in Apollo mansion winked out.
The portal was closed.
James collapsed past Petra, down the steps and onto the lush grass of Victory Hill. Zane followed, panting and nearly laughing with hysterical relief.