Plus, there was Kayla to think about. Lisa and her parents had already decided that the battles and the mysteries and the monsters should be left to the Realitants—including her own brother, Tick. For the rest of the Higginbottoms, staying away from danger and protecting Kayla was all that mattered. They couldn’t do much else, anyway.

Could they?

Lisa hugged Kayla a little tighter to her chest.

The Haunce floated in eternity.

The Haunce floated in the spaces between the spaces, in the darkness between the light, the light between the darkness. It floated in the smallest of the small and the largest of the large. It was everywhere and nowhere, up and down, left and right, big and small.

The Haunce floated and watched, its countless soulikens observing and communicating on a scale no individual human could ever understand.

The lull in the catastrophe Jane had started was almost over. The slipping and cracking and shattering of the Barriers would resume soon. And then it wouldn’t stop until all was lost.

Atticus had reached Jane. They were together in the Factory.

It was time.

The Haunce floated—and watched.

Then it acted.

First, remembering the most human of emotions—compassion—it sent the family of Atticus back to their home. There, they would be safe, as long as everything went according to plan.

Once done with that—a thing that took less than a nanosecond of time—the Haunce winked Sato and his makeshift army to the Thirteenth Reality.

Part 4

Chi’karda’s Power

Chapter 44

Talking with the Devil

Tick and his two friends followed Mistress Jane down a long tunnel dug into the bedrock beneath ground, the hissing flames of the firekelt the only sound and light. No one spoke, no one asked questions, no one made any threats against anyone’s life. Tick rattled his thoughts with each step, trying to come up with the best way to talk to Jane about what needed to happen and to convince her that they needed to put their heads and powers together to stop the Realities from imploding.

But he didn’t know what to say or do. Was he supposed to wait for the Haunce to show up? He sure hoped so, because he didn’t have the first clue how to go about things.

They turned a corner around a jagged edge of dark stone, Jane and her fiery creation a step ahead of them. But Tick stopped. He felt and heard the same womping sound he’d experienced back in the woods near his home, right before finding Jane in his basement. Right before this whole mess started.

Womp.

There it was again—a faint but definite pulse of energy, the vibration of horns and bees.

Womp.

Paul and Sofia took another couple of steps before noticing he’d quit walking.

“What’s wrong?” Sofia asked.

Jane noticed as well, turning around to face them. She tilted her wooden staff forward as though about to strike him with some magical spell. The wavering splashes of light from the dancing firekelt flames turned her red mask the hue of wet blood.

Womp.

“Why have you stopped?” the robed tyrant asked in her painful, raspy voice. “Don’t even think of trying anything—there’s more Chi’karda coiled inside this Barrier Staff than you’ve seen in all your prior glimpses combined. I programmed it especially for you, Atticus Higginbottom. It’s set to unleash its fury on you the second you even breathe a wisp of the power.”

Womp.

Tick felt each and every energy pulse like a wall of water crashing over him. “I just . . . I just keep feeling surges of Chi’karda. Why?” He ignored her threat about her Barrier Staff; they had bigger problems to solve before he could worry about himself.

Jane hesitated, her mask void of expression, probably mulling over whether he was being sincere or trying to trick her. Finally, she said, “You and I are very sensitive to the ripples of energy triggered by Chi’karda, Atticus. I think it’s something you picked up since growing more in tune with the power inside you. Get used to it, or it’ll drive you crazy. Especially in the Factory, where it’s constantly churning. Now come on—I want to show you something.”

Womp. This time the pulse did feel a little more distant, like a constant breeze that he’d grown accustomed to. Or maybe more like breathing—you realize it’s happening only when you think about it.

“Jane . . .” Tick began, wanting to bring up the subject of his mission and get it over with. But the words lodged somewhere down his throat.

“You will call me Mistress Jane,” she said with a flare of anger on her mask. “After the horrible things you’ve done to me, I would think you could at least find a smattering of respect for your elders. For your superiors.”

Tick didn’t care about his pride anymore. He didn’t even feel an ounce of fear for this woman. The only thing that mattered—that throbbed in his mind like a beating heart—was what the Haunce wanted him to do.

“I’m sorry. Mistress Jane. Whatever. We’ll do whatever it is you want us to, and we’ll see whatever it is you want us to see, but we need to talk first. Something really bad is about to happen, and I . . . we . . . need your help.”

Jane’s face melted into a slight frown, a look of curiosity on her mask. She took a few steps toward him. “I can tell you’re not lying. What are you talking about?”

Her response surprised Tick, and something told him that the only reason she didn’t fly off the handle was because she already suspected the truth. He played for that angle. “You have to know that things really went screwy when you tried to destroy the Fifth Reality with your dark matter Blade of Shattered Hope. Well, things are worse than you think. A lot worse. You made the Barriers unstable and ignited a whole bunch of bad stuff that’s gonna end up wiping us all away. We have only a few hours until we’ll all be dead—thanks to you.”

Jane didn’t answer for a long time, her eyes concentrating on Tick, her hand gripping the odd staff. Tick wondered if maybe it just looked like wood but was actually something else. She’d called it a Barrier Staff . . .

She finally spoke. “How could you know these things, Atticus? What kind of trick—”

“It’s not a trick!” Tick yelled. “You’re supposed to be the grown-up here! Act like it! The Haunce rescued me from you—and it told me all this stuff. Your Blade of Shattered Hope did something really bad to the Realities, and we have one chance to fix it.”