Chapter Twenty-Four
“Save her?” Calisa asked. “From what?”
Thomas scowled at the portal that had consumed three years of his life and didn’t answer.
Calisa wasn’t certain whether to repeat the question or let him have a moment to cope with his obvious trauma. But she had to know: Save Auntie Zee from what? She knew the inn had to be rescued—from neglect, from entropy, from bankruptcy and closure and failure, but what was wrong with Auntie Zee?
Eyes still glued to the swirl, he demanded, “How long has Auntie Zee been missing?”
Jack answered, “She’s been disappearing for longer and longer since you’ve been gone, but this is the longest stretch by far. Nearly a week.”
Calisa shook her head. It didn’t make sense.
Why would Auntie Zee take off just when the inn needed her most?
Especially when Jack needed her? Had she been trying to find Jack’s father?
Or just escaping her responsibilities because they’d become too overwhelming?
What if Jack was right and she doesn’t want to be found? Ever?
“Has she explained why?” Thomas asked.
Jack shook his head. “You know her.”
Thomas snorted. “True.”
But I don’t, Calisa wanted to say. She looked from Jack to his father and back again. Jack was staring at his father as if he was afraid he’d vanish if he quit looking at him for even a second. She wasn’t sure he’d even blinked since they’d been reunited.
On her shoulder, the little dragon shifted his wings, and his talons dug into her shirt. She was certain she’d have holes in the fabric, but she didn’t care. She reached up to scratch Steve’s neck. “Save Auntie Zee from what?” she repeated louder.
“From time,” Thomas said.
That wasn’t an answer.
He clarified. Sort of. “From the decay of her portal magic due to the passage of time.”
Calisa closed the door with the swirling iridescent portal that led to the sea serpent world.
On an impulse, she cracked it open again—still active.
She closed it. She didn’t know what he meant by the decay of her magic, but that was secondary to the need to find her.
“Okay, what portal would she most likely have gone through?”
“None of them,” Thomas answered immediately.
He was wrong about that. They’d searched every inch of the inn. She wasn’t anywhere nearby, unless she’d run off into the forest like Melidor, but Calisa couldn’t picture that.
“How do you know that?” Jack asked.
“I know her,” Thomas said. “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s been trying and failing to rescue me.
She’s exhausted herself. She’s here in the inn, trying to recover, trying to find her way back to herself, embarrassed by her failure, unwilling to admit her weakness, even though I’ve told her time and again there’s no shame in not being superhuman.
” He pivoted and stalked toward the kitchen.
“She’s never liked to admit she can’t do something, never wanted to ask for help, never considered that she’s—”
Jack scurried after him and nearly crashed into his father when he suddenly halted. Behind Jack, Calisa peeked into the kitchen to see what had startled Thomas.
The statue stood in front of the sink, her hands clasped over her heart as if she was hoping hard and her eyes squeezed shut as if she was afraid to see.
Calisa wondered if Thomas knew she was alive and aware and—
“Evela.” His voice was an exhale.
“She was the one who helped us find you,” Jack said. “We wouldn’t have even known which portal to try. In fact, we thought she meant—”
“Close your eyes,” Thomas ordered Jack and Calisa.
Calisa obeyed. She waited for him to tell them to open their eyes, but he said nothing. She heard the soft murmuring of Thomas’s voice, too quiet for her to make out the words. He fell silent, and she peeked one eye open.
The statue, motionless, had her arms around Thomas, and his were wrapped around her in a tight embrace. Her head was inclined against his shoulder.
“Your eyes are open,” Thomas accused.
It wasn’t a question. “Sorry. I didn’t—”
The floor suddenly tilted oddly, and her knees felt flimsy, as if her joints were watery. She put her hand out against the kitchen wall.
“Calisa?” She heard concern in Jack’s voice. She tried to turn her head to look at him, and her knees buckled. Steve squawked in alarm. She felt the brush of his wings on her cheek.
And then she saw Jack moving toward her, but he was tilted.
A pool of darkness was rising up from the bottom of her vision. “Jack—”
She felt the dragon’s talons pierce her shoulders as he squawked wildly. The floor loomed sideways, filling her vision, and the wooden birds on the kitchen clock all turned their heads to look at her…and then everything was soft darkness.
—
Calisa woke in Jack’s arms, which was lovely, but why? She stared up at the kitchen rafters, admired the lack of cobwebs, and thought that this was a strange place for a nap.
“It worked,” Jack said. “She’s awake.”
She blinked as Thomas’s face came into view behind Jack’s. He peered down at her. “Luckily, she only needed a drop. You wore yourself out, couldn’t you tell?”
“I…what? Did I faint?”
“Worse,” Thomas said grimly. “You drained your power. Only one way to restore it, and you apparently haven’t been taught how.
Well, only one way aside from the extremely rare flower that I went in search of…
. You’re lucky that I found it, and you, in turn, found me.
” He shook his head before she could speak.
“Auntie Zee will explain everything. For now, don’t open any more portals until you know how to heal yourself magically. ”
“Heal myself?” None of this made sense. Her head was throbbing, and she had a faint taste of cinnamon in her mouth.
She licked her lips. It wasn’t quite cinnamon.
It was sharper. “What did you give me?” Her throat felt scratched, and her voice sounded as if the syllables had been rubbed over a cheese grater.
She swallowed and then winced. Whatever it was had not gone down smoothly.
“Felitris juice,” Thomas said. “It’s what I went into that realm for. Very rare. Extracted from a flower that only grows under ridiculously specific conditions that no one’s been able to replicate. It’s the only known substance that can restore an equally rare power like yours.”
“But what happened to Calisa?” Jack said. “Why did she collapse like that?” His arms were still around her, solid and comforting and warm and nice.
Exactly what I want to ask. Her tongue felt thick, though, and she felt as if her thoughts were swimming in goo.
Her left shoulder ached, and she wondered where Steve had gone.
He’d been on her when she’d collapsed. She hoped she hadn’t fallen on him.
Tilting her head back, Calisa scanned the kitchen—ah, there.
Steve was perched on one of the rafters above the sink, looking down at her with worried eyes.
His wings were spread wide, and smoke seeped out of his mouth. She smiled so he’d know she was okay.
The smoke dissipated.
She wondered how hot his flame was and if he could control it yet. If he could, I could toast s’mores. A little giggle escaped her lips, and then she wondered if she’d hit her head. It was so difficult to focus. Ooh, or make a real crème br?lée with the crispy caramel top. Yum.
Thomas was talking. “It’s draining to open portals.
Literally, it drains you. The farther the realm from ours, the more tiring it is to maintain a doorway.
I wasn’t running errands for the inn all those times I left.
I was looking for felitris juice, to help Auntie Zee replenish her power faster.
She’s weaker than she used to be. It’s age.
Comes for us all, and Auntie Zee has handled it better than most, but even she with her boundless energy isn’t immune to it. ”
Her eyes blurred, and his words faded into a fuzzy murmur.
His voice became crisp again: “…She told me that she could only hold it open for two days while I searched. It should have been plenty of time—I knew precisely where to find the flower, and she’d deliberately opened the portal close to its location—but it was raining when I emerged, and the path down to the shore was slick with mud.
I slipped. Over the cliff. I broke my leg and knocked myself out.
By the time the villagers had nursed me back to health, the portal had closed.
She must have been too weak to reopen it. It’s a very distant realm.”
“I opened it,” Calisa said, her words slow as she tried to form them with her gummy-feeling mouth.
She touched her left shoulder. There were holes in the fabric, and she felt wetness.
She pulled her fingers back and saw blood.
Startled, Steve had dug his talons into her when she’d fainted. She remembered that. “Ow.”
Kneeling next to her, Jack pressed a wet paper towel to her cuts. She winced.
“You’re young, full of untapped strength, but you still have limits,” Thomas said.
“Looks like you hit yours. That realm is very far, so it’s not a surprise.
You said that Auntie Zee has been missing more and more?
I believe she must have been trying to reopen that very portal, exactly as I feared, but lacked the strength to succeed.
Each time, she exhausted herself more, until at last she didn’t have the strength to turn back. ”
She tried to focus, but it was so hard to string his words together. She felt as if they were swimming in her head. Whatever medicine he’d given her hadn’t cured her perfectly. She did remember that the last time they saw Auntie Zee, Jack had been upset about his father.
He stood up. “She usually likes the sitting room.”
“The sitting room has been damp lately,” Jack said. “And we haven’t seen Auntie Zee in days. I told you, we’ve looked everywhere. Even through the portals.” To Calisa, he said, “I don’t know that you should stand up yet.”
Using Jack like a ladder, Calisa was struggling to rise. He helped her balance. Once she was back on two feet, she felt steadier. “I’m fine.”
Above her Steve warbled.
She looked up at him again and repeated, “I’m fine.”
Thomas was already marching out of the kitchen.
Jack kept his arm around Calisa as they hobbled after him.
She wondered if the statue, Evela, was trailing behind them, and she intentionally didn’t turn around, so that Evela could follow.
She also had about a thousand questions about the statue and her relationship with Jack’s dad, as well as a thousand questions about Auntie Zee, the portals, the magic, and the whatever juice.
And me. I never faint. She had never felt this weak before.
It was like someone had sucked all the energy out of every one of her muscles and left them floppy.
Ahead of them, Thomas checked the dining room, then the sitting room, and last the library. Calisa paused to sag against the wall in the lobby. Jack stayed with her. Beside them, the shadowy mirror swirled.
“Hey,” Calisa said to the mirror, “do you know where Auntie Zee is?”
Always.
Wait. What? Really? “And you didn’t think to tell us while we were running around looking for her? For days?” Calisa demanded. She tried to peel herself off the wall to glare at the mirror, but she felt too wobbly. She clutched both Jack and the wall, bracing herself. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Not my problem.
She glared at the shifting shadows within the mirror. She was tempted to lift it off the wall and shake it. It had known all along? While they were panicking and worrying? And Kendra was nearly flooding the inn? “It will be your problem too if the inn closes, you—”
From the library, Thomas said, “Ah, there you are, Zee. Jack and Cali had me worried.”
Auntie Zee! But…they’d passed the library on their way to the portal.
She would have noticed if Auntie Zee were just chilling on the window seat with a book.
Also, why hadn’t Auntie Zee spoken up when they were hauling the statue through the inn?
Or when Kendra was soaking everything? She had to have noticed that they’d been in the middle of an emergency.
Calisa, with Jack’s help, hobbled forward. Leaning against the doorframe, she peered into the library. “Huh,” Jack said. “Um, Dad?”
There was no Auntie Zee.
Only the elderly white cat, Portia, curled on the window seat.
Calisa looked at the cat.
The cat looked back at her.
She couldn’t be…“You’re not implying that Auntie Zee is…a cat…Are you?” It felt like a ridiculous question, but given all that she’d seen…
“No, of course not,” Jack said immediately.
Thomas shrugged. “She is what she is.”
“What?” Jack said. “Portia? She…what?”
Calisa looked over her shoulder. The mirror was only smoke, wordless and unhelpful, but the statue, Evela, had followed them as far as the lobby.
Her head was inclined: Yes.