Escape from Windenburg | 15

Our journey that night felt endless as we followed the winding river out of Granite Falls and into the wilderness proper, like somehow we crossed hundreds of miles and spent days running without rest while, around us, the rest of the world moved at a much slower pace. Who knows? Maybe there was some magic afoot, surreptitiously nudging us along, slowing the movement of time down to a trickle so that we could reach our destination before the sky started to lighten. Despite several road bumps, I'd managed to get this far, so I had to believe that the universe was on my side, conspiring in the shadows to get me where I needed to be.

After what might've been an eternity but might've also been only a couple hours, we finally came upon the first signs of civilization we'd seen since leaving Enji and Rahul behind: a bridge scattered with softly glowing lamps and an actual paved road. It was a small, sleepy village with not a living soul in sight at such a late hour, but it was a good sign nonetheless. I'd remembered that the portal was nestled between a cluster of tiny towns that very often didn't even show up on any maps, in other words, towns very much like this. My gut told me we were headed in the right direction.

The moment I knew for sure that we were closer to the portal than we even realized was when we happened upon a grouping of trees covered in yellow blossoms. I knew those trees. Despite only ever seeing them a handful of times in my young life, they'd left an impression. A shiver raced up my spine at the association they triggered in my brain. I'd stood in this exact place before.

"They're just trees," Alejandro replied skeptically when I excitedly pointed them out. "How can you be so sure?" He was breathless from our journey, and I could tell he was slightly regretting his decision to join me. It was obvious he hadn't quite understood he'd be running a marathon until it was already well under way.

"I just am," I insisted. "You can't feel how thick the air is here, how it almost seems like it's alive? How those weird pockets of fog just cropped up out of nowhere even though it was completely clear less than five minutes ago? There's spellwork at play here, for sure, probably an attempt to keep oblivious mortals out."

Alejandro frowned at me, furrowing his brow. "I'm the oblivious mortal in this situation, aren't I?"

"Lucky you're with me then," I said, grinning, and continued to jog forward, giving him no choice but to follow along.

We trudged along until we reached a shallow pond. I stopped dead in my tracks and marveled at the sight before us. There, at long last, stood the portal, exactly as I remembered it, erected from enduring ancient stone that had withstood the elements for who knew how many thousands of years, its center still shimmering with whatever unexplainable energy allowed the real world and the Magic Realm to converge in this place.

Alejandro had gone suddenly silent behind me, and when I glanced over my shoulder, he stood frozen with his mouth agape. Finally, he managed to pull himself together enough to ask, "You're telling me we're supposed to cross through that? It looks like it could dissolve me in a second!"

I shrugged nonchalantly. "You can stay behind and wait for me if you'd prefer," I told him, already psyching myself up to take the plunge into the glowing depths of the portal's opening. "But I imagine you might live to regret it if you deny yourself this once in a lifetime experience." Then I stepped through.

In the end, Alejandro's curiosity got the best of him; when I turned back, he was only a few steps behind me. "Whoa," he whispered reverentially, eyes going wide at the entirely new world he had walked into. "This looks straight out of that old book series. You know the one. What's it called? Oh, yeah, Henry P-"

"That name's a dirty word here," I warned him before he could utter another syllable of it. "It's a long story. Besides, doesn't anyone know a single other book about magic? Anyway, welcome to Casters Alley. To be honest, I'm surprised this place is still standing. It was already falling apart before everything that happened to the Sages."

Even so, the place was a ghost town at that time of night, so we crossed through the portal that led directly to the Magical Headquarters, which also still stood, as imposing and stately as it ever was. Even though I'd grown substantially since the last time I set foot there, I still felt dwarfed by its mere presence.

"There's someone in there!" Alejandro exclaimed, and I squinted to get a better look through the window as we approached. Sure enough, a woman stood with her back to us, waiting there patiently as if she were expecting company to arrive any minute. Could it be me she was waiting for?

All at once, our long journey seemed to catch up to Alejandro, and he collapsed onto a nearby bench in exhaustion. "I'd better wait out here," he said in between yawns. "I have a feeling I'd be met with a chilly reception anyway. This one's all you, Rowan."

My heart accelerated, and I gulped nervously. Suddenly, I felt like nothing more than a naive little girl set adrift in circumstances entirely out of her depth. But I was stronger than I realized, I tried to remind myself. Through my determination and training, I'd earned the right to be here and to ask the questions I'd come here to ask. I could do this.

As I tentatively navigated the building's winding halls, the place felt even larger and more cavernous than it had seemed on the outside or than it existed in my memory, and the ominous quiet that surrounded me didn't help. In my quest to find the woman I'd seen in the window, I managed to wind up in a very familiar setting. All night, I'd been feeling flashes of deja vu, but this one was the strongest yet. Memories of the brief time I'd studied here as a child flooded my memory. Most of all, I remembered my mom standing at the front of the class, holding an entranced clutch of students in her commanding grip.

"Rowan 'Aukai," a voice solemnly intoned from the opposite corner of the classroom, and I nearly screamed at how abruptly the room was filled with sound. I pivoted and saw a woman seated at my mom's old desk, most likely the same woman I'd sighted from outside. I didn't recognize her, but her stately demeanor and rich, fanciful attire told me only one thing: she was a Sage.

"How do you know my name?" I exclaimed in disbelief, and once the questions started flowing, I couldn't seem to make them stop. "Who are you, and how does this place still exist?"

"One question at a time," she told me, her mouth lifting in a bemused smile. "I am Fanoula, Sage of Untamed Magic. Of course, you wouldn't remember me. I stepped into the position quite unexpectedly, following the brutal and tragic death of Morgyn, one of my greatest friends and teachers." Her expression turned abruptly mournful, but she was overtaken by her emotions for only a moment before she forced herself to shake the grief off. "What occurred that day is unspeakable, but we spellcasters are nothing if not resilient. You should know that more than anyone." She leveled a meaningful glance at me, as though she knew exactly how hard I'd worked to teach myself magic since my mom's death. "It was difficult for a very long time, but we managed to claw our way back from that tragedy stronger than ever. Of course, the fact that we still had a Realm to piece together again was in large part due to your mother's sacrifice. We haven't forgotten what she did for us, and we haven't stopped waiting for you to find your way home."

Home. I'd spent so much of my life feeling like an outsider that the word sounded foreign to my ears. It was nearly impossible to fathom that an entire Realm had been anticipating my arrival. I'd never felt that wanted by anyone. "I've been trying to bring my mom back," I told her. "She wasn't supposed to die!" Suddenly, I realized how selfish this sounded, after she had just reminded me of her own friend's tragic end. "I think she's trapped between worlds because the spirit realm won't accept her. She wasn't marked for death yet, and they can tell." Although I'd never voiced this theory aloud before, it immediately felt like the truest thing I'd ever said.

Fanoula only nodded expressionlessly in response and beckoned for me to follow her outside, which left me unsure about how she had taken my outburst. "Normally, we urge caution when meddling with the afterlife," she said finally. "As a general rule, what's done is done. We cannot change the past, and it is unwise to interfere with the work of the Reaper." I could feel my heart falling further into the pit of my stomach with every word. "But," she added weightily, "in very rare cases, the spirit is not sufficiently readied for death and will remain perpetually in limbo without interference. There is a spell for these unlikely occasions."

At that, my heart leapt back into my rib cage, beating madly. "And you know it?" I asked impatiently.

She continued to speak with frustrating care and precision, an infinity seeming to elapse in the space between each syllable. "I do, but in this case I cannot be the one to perform it. I can teach you the words, but the caster has to be you."

"But that's the problem!" I exclaimed. "I'm nowhere near powerful enough to pull this off on my own. I came here hoping to find someone strong enough to help me."

"You underestimate yourself, Rowan. You come from an ancient and revered magical line, even if its power has only recently been resurrected. Most spellcasters cannot count themselves so lucky. Almost everything you need is already inside of you. But there are ways to amplify that power even further." She conjured a wand from thin air. "Like this."

"A wand?" I asked dumbly.

"Not just any wand," she replied, grinning impishly. "This wand was hand-crafted nearly a century ago by Morgyn themself. It has been bound with incantations capable of multiplying the magical charge of any spellcaster who uses it." She sighed heavily, her face darkening once again. "If only they'd had it with them the night of that fateful attack."

I plucked the wand from her outstretched hand and instinctively brandished it with a flourish then almost instantly felt childish for doing so. "If you know the spell for resurrection, why have you never used it to bring back Morgyn and the other Sages?"

"I would be unsuccessful even if I tried," she told me. "As you know, the Sages rely on a spell of immortality that allows them to hold their position as long as they feel they are suited for it. In doing so, Morgyn, Simeon, and Faba had already cheated death many times over. In the Reaper's eyes, their demises were long overdue. He was eager to collect their souls the moment the chance presented itself." I shuddered at the ruthless picture she painted, and she added hastily, "He's only doing his job. Not even the Reaper relishes taking a soul before its time. Your mother was at the prime of her life and died undertaking a heroic deed. If there's anyone he won't hesitate to return, it's her."

I was still worried that the spell wouldn't work, not to mention skeptical that I could harness enough power, even with the wand, to successfully cast it, despite Fanoula's confidence. But I tried to pay full attention as she relayed the words of the incantation and detailed instructions for the exact tone and gestures that must accompany it. Once again, I was nervous. There were so many intricate parts, and it would be so easy to mispronounce just one syllable or leave out a single movement of the hand. For so much of my life, self-doubt had been my default state, yet everyone around me kept reiterating how much they believed in me. It was high time I finally learned to believe in myself. Maybe that was the key I'd really been missing all along.

Between Fanoula's encouragement and my last minute epiphany, I didn't even need to physically hold the wand to amp up my power. Simply having it within my vicinity seemed to supercharge the magical energy coursing through my veins, which came coursing out of my palms in a blazing ball of light so blindingly white it was nearly opaque, its dense, buzzing brightness practically obliterating my vision. I was ready now. I could feel my cells singing with the certainty.

"Holy shit," I suddenly heard Alejandro exclaim from behind me, and I whirled around to find him frozen in stupefaction at the sight of my suddenly extremely tangible reserves of power. When I turned back again, Fanoula had vanished, seemingly satisfied she had taught me everything I needed to know.

"You're definitely going to have to explain to me what in the hell that was all about," he said eventually, finally finding his voice after a long moment of silence. "But right now we really need to get moving. It's impossible to tell how much time has passed in here. I assume you got the information you wanted?"

"Yes," I replied, a newfound assurance in my voice, "I know exactly what to do now." His cocked eyebrow told me he had about a million follow-up questions, but they would all have to be answered later. We had a campsite to return to and a very limited amount of time left to get there.

"Oh my God," Rahul greeted us dramatically when we finally made it back. Our goal had been to return by sunrise, but it was now several hours past daybreak, and we were both out of breath from running as fast as our legs would take us. "I was afraid you guys were gone for good."

"Does Enji suspect anything?" I asked raggedly, trying to catch my breath between words.

"I don't think so," he replied. "I somehow managed to convince him you two nature freaks are so in love with the forest you decided to set out on your own for an early morning hike. He was so thrilled to believe he'd converted you he didn't even stop to think about how unlikely it was."

"Rowan! Alejandro!" Enji called out abruptly, and I gulped at the possibility that our lie was about to be unraveled. As we begrudgingly shuffled over to him, he narrowed his eyes and scanned us up and down, like he was trying to determine if we had actually been out on a hike. Of course, in a way, it was true, and hopefully our sweaty faces and dirty, rumpled clothes backed that up. But then his face broke out into one of his signature smiles, and he set down his plate of breakfast to give each of us a hearty slap on the back. "I can't say how happy I am to hear that this place is really speaking to you. What did I tell you? A few days taking in that fresh mountain air and you'll be changed forever."

While we spoke to Enji, Rahul continued to hover awkwardly, and the moment he got the opportunity, he pulled me aside for a moment of privacy. "Rowan, I was so worried about you!" he exclaimed, his brow furrowing with seemingly genuine concern. "What if we had never gotten to see each other again? You know, I wanted to do this before you left, but I ended up chickening out." Before I could ask what he was on about, he took a deep breath, muttered, "Well, here goes nothing," and leaned in to kiss me. What?!? I was caught so off-guard that I froze and our lips clung together for several impossibly long seconds before I stumbled backwards in shock.

I had no idea how to respond. Even though I'd been afraid that Rahul might harbor deeper feelings for me, I'd tried to push that perception to the back of my mind, especially since I only thought of him as a friend. Finally, I forced myself to play it off as a joke, laughing and rolling my eyes. "Good one," I said, shoving him playfully in the chest. "For a minute, I almost believed you were actually in love with me."

Several conflicting emotions seemed to play out on his face before he settled on playing along, obviously embarrassed that I hadn't reciprocated his feelings. "Ha, yeah," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "That was totally a joke. You should've seen the look on your face. It was priceless."

As we sat down for breakfast, the atmosphere remained oppressively awkward. Suddenly, Rahul and I could barely look each other in the eye let alone carry on a normal conversation like nothing at all had happened. Halfway through our mostly silent meal, Alejandro decided he couldn't contain his curiosity a moment longer. "Is anyone going to tell me what the fuck is going on here?" he asked bluntly.

I lowered my eyes to my barely touched plate and muttered, "What do you mean?"

"Nothing's going on, man," Rahul said, stuffing his face to distract himself from the mortification. "You must be imagining things because I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure," Alejandro replied but didn't push the subject further, for now at least.

Soon enough, we were disassembling the tents and packing up our knapsacks to head back to Evergreen Harbor. My head was buzzing with too many conflicting thoughts to count. Rahul's spur of the moment advance had totally thrown me for a loop, and that sort of drama was the last thing I needed to be dealing with now that I was on the cusp of finally accomplishing exactly what I had intended to do when I left home all those months ago. I had no idea how I was going to smooth things over between us. All I knew was that, in more ways than one, this camping trip had definitely turned out to be an experience to remember.