Chapter 46
Gwendolynne
“The Void?” Conall gasps out. “But…how?”
“He’s got a piece of Source implanted in his neck.” I touch my own neck involuntarily; the pitch of my voice rises until I’m sounding borderline unhinged. “I guess they used him to hold open the portal and then, what…just dragged him right through?”
Conall’s eyes widen. “He’s got a Source? How’d he get a Source?”
Heloise tugs on a loose braid before winding it back into her bun. “Magecorp put it in, we think. The fuckers.”
I push back my own hair with shaking hands.
“We need to find him. Quickly. The surges are killing the human tethers, and—” Tears spring to my eyes.
I can’t believe that after everything that’s happened, I’m crying over the possibility that Harrisford Briggs might die.
If you’d asked me three weeks ago what I wished for Harrisford’s future, I’d have probably said that I wanted him dead.
Hell, if you’d asked me this morning, I would’ve offered to strangle him myself.
But that was before I figured out he hadn’t left me—he’d disappeared. And now he’s in danger. Fear is clawing up my insides, gouging out a gaping hole. I chew the inside of my cheek so hard that it bleeds, and the metallic taste of blood floods my mouth, centering me.
“Perhaps we need to open the portal again,” Conall suggests. “In the same place where he was taken.” He frowns, then murmurs, “There must be a weak point in here, somewhere.”
“Okay.” I draw in a shuddering breath. “But how do we open one? We haven’t been able to figure out how the black box works.”
“Well…” Conall rubs his temples, thinking.
“We’re assuming the portal is here, in this room, where his life force disappears, aren’t we?
So long as we find the right spot, we can use our bit of Source to tether open this side.
Hopefully, he’ll be on the other side.” He frowns.
“We’ll need the exact coordinates, though. ”
“Right. Okay.” I nod my head, which feels barely attached to my neck, like I’m one of those spring-loaded bobblehead dolls.
We have a plan. If we have a plan, I can distract myself from falling into an anxious heap.
“Percy, can you find the weak spot? Can you smell where Harrisford’s life force disappears? ”
Percy twitches his whiskers, ducking his head slightly as if to nod. Yes, Hairless One, he says to me. I am fairly certain that I can.
Ten minutes later, we’ve gathered our supplies—including the black box—and Conall is fiddling with its dials, the tip of his tongue sticking out.
Pen is at the door, keeping watch. Percy is pacing around the room, sniffing everything intently, trying to find the exact location of the previous tear: the one that Harrisford would have been snatched through when he was kidnapped into the Void.
I’m standing on Harrisford’s plush cream carpet, Heli’s arms around me. I’m quaking. My body is nothing but adrenaline; my organs feel too big for my skin.
“Do you think I’ll find him?” I say, after a prolonged period of silence. I can’t hide the slight tremor in my voice.
Heloise gives my shoulders a squeeze. “What do you mean, ‘I’? We will find him, Gwen. Of course we will. Have faith.”
I sniff and blink back tears. “You don’t have to come. Into the Void, I mean.”
She huffs out a soft laugh. “Don’t be daft, Gwen.”
“But…it might be dangerous.”
She reaches up to give me an affectionate pat on the cheek. “G, you’re my best friend. Of course I’ll come.”
“I’ll come too,” Conall says, still focused on the black box. It makes sense—he would never pass up the opportunity to study the infamous Void up close.
Percy interrupts his search for half a second to interject, I too shall accompany you.
A tiny ember of warmth sparks within my chest. As much as I don’t want any of my friends to risk themselves, I’m kind of glad I won’t be alone.
Everyone falls quiet again, the only sound the clicks and whirs from Conall fiddling with the box.
“But,” Heloise continues, breaking the silence. Her voice has turned unusually stern. “If we go in there and find him, G, then you have to promise one thing.”
Suddenly wary, I say, “What’s that?”
She crosses her arms and gives me a knowing look. “That you’ll finally shag him.”
I groan and bury my face in my hands. “Heli…” Will she see the way my face has flushed red? Will she figure out I already did?
“Don’t ‘Heli’ me, Gwen. You just need to do it already. I mean, I’ve seen you. You’ve been making sex eyes at him for weeks.”
I open my mouth to explain, but she holds up one finger to stop me.
“Yes, you have. Don’t deny it. Now, I don’t care whether you two fall in love and get married and have perfect biracial babies, or whether you fuck like rabbits exactly once to get it all out of your systems, but, girl—if you don’t promise to do at least one of those things, then I am not going to help you get him.
Do you know how much of a cranky-arse bitch you’ve been since that man started chasing you? ”
I know what she’s doing. She’s trying to lighten the mood by distracting me. Still, I rise to the bait, scowling at her. It must be so obvious by now that I’m blushing. “He has not been chasing me—”
“Oh yes he has.” She gives me a gentle smack on the side of my head. “What planet have you been living on? Because whatever sex eyes you’ve been making”—her lips curl into a wicked smile—“he’s been making them ten times worse. At you.”
She gives me the smuggest, most satisfied smile, and I’m so annoyed that I feel the need to finally confess…everything.
I fold my arms and raise both eyebrows. Irritation has chased away my despondency, at least. “Well, you’ve got it all wrong. I’ll have you know, we kind of…already did…” I taper off in embarrassment.
Her mouth falls open, and she gives a shocked sort of laugh. “You didn’t.”
“We did.” It’s my turn to look a little smug now. “Where do you think I was, the night of the end-of-exams party?”
She tips her head to one side, scrutinizing me through narrowed eyes. “Being grumpy and antisocial in your room? Like usual?”
I bristle, about to retort, but I’m interrupted by Percy, who lets out a sharp, high-pitched meow. He’s found something. It’s next to the desk I’d marveled over the first time I’d been in here. Climbing to my feet, I slowly creep over to the empty space that Percy is scratching at.
He continues to cry, sounding strangely catlike, and scrabbles at a specific point in midair.
Almost like it’s a door.
“It’s here, is it?” I say.
He meows again, and then in my head, says, Indeed it is, Hairless One.
Sitting back on his haunches, he keeps pawing at the air with his front foot.
He seems desperate to get through. I remember the strange luring sensation I’d felt when faced with the Source back at Magecorp HQ.
Do familiars feel the same pull? Does the Void magic call to them, even harder and stronger than it does to us humans?
“How are you doing, Conall?” I ask, my insides seizing up with ice. Conall presses a couple of buttons, and then finally the box whirs to life.
“Good,” he says, triumphant. “I think I’ve got it.” Now that we have the right conditions, a designated weak point, and tethers both inside and outside the Void, he’s finally been able to figure out how it works.
“You’re amazing,” I say genuinely, and he blushes a dark shade of pink.
Pen lurks by the entrance, peering through a crack in the door. They’re too nervous to enter the Void itself but have volunteered to keep watch. This leaves Heloise, Conall, Percy, and me to go in and rescue Harrisford.
This is it.
“Are we all ready?” I say, and everyone gives me brisk nods. Conall and Heloise clasp hands, and Pen tenses by the door.
Sinking onto one knee, I crouch down to address Percy.
“It’s time. You take the Source and stand in position, and Conall will open the portal.
” We only have a tiny scrap of Source, and Conall has hypothesized that at such short notice, only Percy, with his ability to channel and amplify magic, will generate enough energy to hold open the Void.
I present the small glowing Source fragment sitting on my flattened palm to him, and Percy tilts his head so he can reach it.
His rough little tongue tickles as he licks up the Source and swallows it.
“Thanks, Percy,” I say.
Percy’s eye slits to half-mast. He gives me a low, throaty purr and, like the first time we’d met, tilts his head and bumps it against my hand.
I let out a sob, choked with tears…This cat, who I’ve known for just a shade over three weeks, is risking his life to help me rescue a man he knows only as the Bum Scratcher.
I scratch him on the head and chin while his purr rises in volume, until it sounds like the engine of Harrisford’s mage-powered bike.
Then I give him a final stroke—from the top of his head to his tail.
He arches up into my touch, then turns and slinks toward the unopened portal to take up his position.
Conall presses another button. A whirring sound fills the room, and the air begins to ripple and shimmer.
A deep feeling of dread—and euphoria—grips me, which I attribute to the effect of the Void.
Percy stands waiting, his crooked tail sticking straight up, the very tip of it flicking back and forth.
“We stick together,” I tell everyone, including Percy. I grasp the scalpel I brought along for self-defense so hard that my knuckles hurt. “None of us leaves without the others, understood?”
Everyone steels themself as the universe splits wide open. We adjust our footing, bracing ourselves as violent pulses of magic stream out from the tear. It explodes out: raw, untamed power, making our hair stand on end.
A stream of light spikes out from the rupture in reality. Sparks fly, splattering Harrisford’s wallpaper with tiny scorch marks. Conall and I shoot a glance at one another. Is it supposed to look like this?
I don’t get to ask, because just at that moment, Pudding leaps off her perch and latches onto my face. “Fuck!” Reflexively, I scrabble to get her off me. Has the influx of Void magic affected her, too? Or is she just scared?
To avoid my flailing scalpel blade, Pudding scrambles to the top of my head, her claws gouging scratches in my scalp. I’ve never seen her move so fast. “Pudding, stop!”
It’s Pen who manages to save me, darting forward, plucking Pudding off my head, and flinging her into the walk-in-wardrobe. They shut the door firmly. “That’ll help,” they say, then give a wobbly laugh.
“Thanks, Pen.” I rub at my tender head, then call out to Pudding. “I’m sorry, Pudding! I promise I’m trying to help Harrisford, not hurt him!”
The rip grows wider, and we all fall silent again. Percy turns his head, and when he speaks, his voice has taken on an unusual gravity.
Hairless One, he says, staring at me, his single eye wide and unblinking. He almost sounds…mournful? I want you to know that if anyone here dies, then I…I shall be sure to eat you last.
This is…oddly touching. Warmth flushes through my chest. Darting forward, I scoop him up, kiss him on top of his head—hard—then let him back down to the floor. He lands, looking undignified and bedraggled and very much the worse for wear.
The portal is several feet wide now, the power from it streaming out in gusts of wind that buffet us around. Percy struts forward, his head and tail held high, and right at the entrance to the other world…
He stops.
He looks left, then right, then left again, then stands staring straight into the Void. We all watch with bated breath, waiting for him to go through. But he just…doesn’t.
Ugh. I think. Cats. So typical. They scrabble and scratch to go through a door, and then when it finally opens, they just bloody well stand there.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I say, scooping Percy up in my arms and striding resolutely through the gateway. “Come on, everybody. We’re going in.”