Tick had been trying to look at the floor, avoiding the menacing mask on Jane’s face. But his eyes kept drawing back to it, fascinated at its almost magical ability to change expressions. Upon Master George’s question, it melted into compassion, almost sadness.

“You have always known my wishes,” she said in a flat voice, as if beginning a long lecture. “My ways and means may have changed—certainly my abilities have—but I’ve never wavered from my lifetime mission, George. And that is to see the suffering of countless Alterants end. To create one and only one Reality, where the strongest of each one of us can live, and where we can stop the torturous splitting of worlds.”

“I’ve never heard you put it quite that way before,” Master George said. “I remember your talk of a Utopia, a paradise, a place where all can be happy. The way you describe it now sounds more like the wishes of an evil, insane, power-hungry monster. What’s happened to you, Jane?”

She paused to let him speak, but then acted as if she hadn’t heard a word he said, continuing her lecture without missing a beat. “The first step of my plan is not going to be easy. I hardly expect any of you to understand what I do or to give it your blessing. But I couldn’t possibly care less. For what the lot of you have done to me, I don’t expect to let most of you live long enough to see the end come to pass.”

She paused, turning her head to look at each person in the room. “But you all will see what I plan for tomorrow. You’ll see it, and you’ll know my power once and for all.”

Master George wouldn’t quit pushing. “Jane, this is madness.”

“Madness?” she repeated. “I tried it your way, the Realitants’ way. And look what I got in return.” She motioned to her face and robed body with her hideous hands then held them up for everyone to see. “The irony is, that by ruining me physically, you’ve helped me more than you know. Not only can I channel my abilities more acutely than ever before, but I’ve been reminded of what I knew from the beginning. That the only way to accomplish anything is by taking the hard road, the harsh road. The sometimes cruel and hateful road. Never before has it been so true that the ends will justify the means. I’ll never stray from the path again. Never.”

Tick felt heat simmering inside him as she spoke, growing and intensifying with every word. Though he didn’t really know the specifics of what she was talking about, he could hear the evil in her voice, the horrible intent of her words. He could almost feel it, just like the pulse that had brought him down here in the first place. The pulse. What had that been?

“As you can see,” Jane continued, “I’m learning more each and every day about how to use the gifts that have been given to me. Take the waterkelts, for example. You’d be amazed at how easy it is to manipulate the molecules of our favorite liquid.”

Tick’s anger grew, heat boiling in his chest. And despite his better judgment, this time he didn’t stop it. Jane had obviously noticed.

“Atticus, are we going to have a problem?” she asked coolly. But he thought he heard the slightest trace of concern, and she definitely took a small step backward. She feared him; he knew it.

“Tick,” his dad said next to him, turning toward him and gripping him by the shoulders. “Are you feeling it again? Push it away, hold it back, do something.” The worry creasing his face tore at Tick’s heart, so he looked away, back at Jane.

His mom squeezed his arm, then whispered in his ear. “Atticus, pull it back. Go through the breathing exercises. Son, we’re not going to let her hurt—”

“I won’t listen to another word she says!” Tick screamed. He was losing control and felt his body trembling. He had to do something. “We can’t just let her talk like this to us!” His skin burned. He looked at his arms, half-expecting to see blisters and smoke. But all was normal.

“Atticus—” his mom said.

She stepped away from him, as did his dad. Tick looked over at Sofia and Paul, their eyes wide. They were scared of him. They were all scared of him. He noticed Master George’s hand had slipped into his pocket, fingering something there. Tick knew it had to be another shot of whatever Sofia had used to knock him out in Chu’s mountain office building.

Tick didn’t know what to do. He felt the heat inside him, the power, weaken a little. He looked back at Jane, hoping to reignite it. She hadn’t moved, but her mask was pulled back in fury.

“You can’t stand against me,” Jane said. “Not now, not after what you did to me. Stop now, or you’ll spend the rest of your short life regretting it.”

“What did I do to you?” Tick spat back at her. “You tried to kill me!”

“What did you do? What did you do?” Jane stepped forward, closer than before, regaining her ground. “You took the strongest parts of the most powerful weapon ever created by man and melded them with a woman already equipped with a control over Chi’karda never seen before. That’s what you did, Atticus. Your selfish, cowardly act will end up being the very thing that will allow me to win.”

“It . . . will . . . not,” Tick said, concentrating with every ounce of brain power he could muster, trying to sense, to feel, to grasp the boiling Chi’karda within him. He remembered last year when Jane had pulled it out of him in a cloud of orange sparkles, a mist of tangible power. He tried to visualize it the same way, tried to touch it.

“Stop it,” Jane warned. “Stop it now!”

“Atticus,” his mom pleaded. “She’s right. Now’s not the time!”

“Tick, pull it back before you kill yourself!” Sofia yelled.

The others shouted similar words at him. Master George pulled what looked like an ordinary pen from his pocket. But Tick couldn’t stop. He couldn’t let Jane do anything to harm his friends and family.

He turned his attention back to her, focusing again on the burning power within him, holding onto it in a way he could’ve never described to anyone. Then he threw it at Jane. Screaming, he leaned forward and threw the power at her, pushing it away from him in a rush of energy and invisible flame.

A thunderclap shook the room as Jane stumbled backward, fiery sparks exploding all around her. Boxes tumbled, people fell to the ground. There was shouting and yelling. Somewhere, glass shattered. Another thunderclap, a thump of booming sound, shook the whole house. Streaks of orange mist swirled throughout the basement like ribbons of sunset, slashing this way and that. Tick felt as if lava flowed in his veins and thought his head might explode from the pressure.