“I’m glad you approve,” Nobody said. “Now, do you know what you’re doing?”
“Doing?” Owen said, still distracted. He’d never seen such an authentic costume before, which just made sense, since it was magic. Wait, did he know magic now too? He tried to think of a spell, but nothing sprang to mind. Apparently, his mind hadn’t been disguised into Kiel’s. Which wouldn’t have made sense anyway. Oh well, there was always the spell book.
“Charm is just about here,” Nobody said, walking back toward the wall that they’d emerged from. He gestured, murmuring some spell-sounding words. The entire tower glowed, then magically changed to look a bit more disheveled, as if someone had gone on a rampage through it. “Dr. Verity would have torn apart this tower if you hadn’t interfered. Now, you as Kiel have arrived too late to save the Magister, so I’d suggest mourning when Charm arrives. She has the first six keys on her ship, but you’ll need to locate the Seventh Key before Dr. Verity’s armies of Science Soldiers destroy Magisteria. Finally, you’ll need to face down Dr. Verity to stop him once and for all by unlocking the Source of Magic.”
“Wait!” Owen shouted, shoving his wands back into their sheathes. “Dr. Verity was stuck in that same place I was, that blank place past the wall! What about him?”
Nobody gave him a look. “I already brought him back where he was meant to go and wiped his memory of everything past the ending of the last book. The story must go on, even if that means setting villains free.” He turned to leave. “I can’t be present when the story starts. Charm is just about here, and that’s where this last book begins. Remember, you came back to find the Magister missing, and presumed dead. That’s all you know. The rest you’ll find out as the book continues along. Don’t mess this up, Kiel Gnomenfoot!”
“I won’t!” Owen said. “I can’t believe this. This is the greatest moment of my life!”
Nobody smiled. “Good luck, boy. You’ll be fine. How hard can it be to play the hero you always wanted to be, after all?”
And with that, he disappeared into the same nothingness that Owen had just been trapped in.
“I’m Kiel Gnomenfoot!” he said to nobody now. “Me! Kiel Gnomenfoot!”
Alphonse, Kiel’s winged cat, looked up with an unbelieving expression, then began to aggressively lick his paw as his wings curled in around him.
“No one asked you,” Owen told the cat.
Footsteps outside the destroyed door to the study brought him back to his senses. Owen glanced around, then suddenly realized what he was supposed to be doing. He’d read these books a thousand times. If Kiel Gnomenfoot had just found out that the Magister had potentially died, or at the very least was missing, he’d be completely crushed . . . but trying to hide it as much as he could.
Owen considered that for a moment, then fell to his knees, dropping his head into his hands. Only, instead of grieving, he was hiding a wide grin. This was so exciting! Kind of like acting, only this was playing a part in a story, instead of in a play or movie.
“Kiel?” said a girl’s voice.
Don’t get excited. Just because this is one of the coolest things you’ve ever been a part of.
Owen slowly lifted his head and glanced over his shoulder at the girl behind him wearing an all-black spacesuit, her right robotic arm and left robotic leg uncovered. Two ray guns were strapped to either side of her waist, and her human eye looked at him with pity. Her robotic eye, however, just looked at him like a robotic eye.
“We were too late, weren’t we?” said Charm, daughter of the now-deceased president of Quanterium, science genius, and half-robot best friend of Kiel Gnomenfoot. She looked around awkwardly. “I’m, uh, sorry.”
Right, Charm hated showing any kind of emotion ever since the loss of her parents! She never knew how to be nice to Kiel, and usually just yelled at him instead. Feelings made her nervous, and she hated Kiel’s jokes, or so she said. The book made it out like she secretly liked Kiel and his sense of humor, though.
Which meant she now secretly liked Owen, and his sense of humor. Which worked out pretty well, because Charm was kind of cute for a half robot with a red eye.
Stop that. Play it cool. Owen took a deep breath to steady himself, then forced a grieving sigh. “I’m sorry too,” he said as gruffly as he could. “It’s all my fault.”
“It was Dr. Verity?”
He nodded as seriously as he could.
“There’s nothing more we can do here, then,” she said, yanking him up to his feet with her incredibly strong robot arm. “I was going to wait in the ship, but sensors detected one of the Science Soldier transport ships surrounding Magisteria now on its way down here, so I figured I should warn you.”
“Warn me?” Owen asked.
Something exploded just above them, and Charm flipped around, her ray guns in hand, pointing at the stairs.
“That we’re about to have company,” she said.
Okay. Yeah, this was totally like living out an incredible action movie, only a million times better. Too bad Bethany had to hate fun so much, or she could have been there with him, disguised as a desk or Alphonse or something.
“Let them come,” Owen said to Charm, narrowing his eyes in what he hoped was a dangerous way. “I’m in the mood to take down a few robots.”
Awesome.
CHAPTER 15
Write,” the Magister told Jonathan Porterhouse.
Mr. Porterhouse, wide-eyed with fear, didn’t move.
The Magister’s eyes hardened, and he raised a glowing hand. For a moment it looked like he might attack the author, and Bethany could see the glow of magic reflected in Mr. Porterhouse’s eyes.
But instead, the Magister lowered his hand, the glow dying. To her side, Bethany heard the boy in black quietly let out a huge breath he’d been holding.
“I have no desire to hurt you, Jonathan Porterhouse,” the Magister said. He gestured, and the author began to sink into the floor. Mr. Porterhouse’s face contorted like he was screaming, but no sound came out, given that he still had no mouth. “At least, not if you are innocent in this,” the Magister continued. “If innocence is indeed a possibility. Consider your choices here, as I shall consider mine.”
Mr. Porterhouse sank out of sight, his mouth reappearing just in time for his scream to be cut off as he disappeared, and Bethany shivered. “Where did you put him?” she whispered.
“He has no dungeon in this home,” the Magister told her. “So the lowest floor shall have to suffice.” He gave her a tired look. “I truly do have no wish to harm the man, if he is ignorant of his actions. In fact, I wish no harm upon anyone. But I have seen his library. Thousands upon thousands of stories lie within those books, and if each one contains a world like mine, existing solely to entertain your people . . .” He rubbed his forehead with his thumbs. “I cannot let this continue, Bethany. I cannot.”
Bethany shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re saying, but you can’t just change it. There’s nothing to change. What could you possibly do?”
“Nothing,” the Magister admitted. “Not without your power.”
“My . . . my power?”
“Magi, let’s discuss this,” the boy in black said, but the Magister ignored him.
“Your father comes from a world like mine,” the Magister told her. “Did one of your writers invent him, too? Were his actions his own, or forced upon him? Don’t you see, Bethany? If your father and his world were created to follow a story, then he had no freedom! His will was not his own!”
“I don’t like where this is headed,” the boy said. “Maybe it’s time we all relaxed and took a deep breath—”
“Help me!” the Magister shouted at her. “Help me free these worlds from living according to another’s whims. Give them back control of their lives!”
“What are you asking me?” Bethany said, taking a step backward.
The Magister held out his hand, and a Kiel Gnomenfoot book flew into it from a nearby table. “I’m asking you to u
se your power and deliver the people of these worlds into your own, like you have for Kiel and me. Free them, that they might no longer be controlled and can live their lives however they wish, subjected to no one’s whim or story!”
What? Bethany’s mouth dropped open. Bring every fictional character into the real world? That was beyond crazy!
“Magi, there would be chaos,” the boy said quietly.
“And what do we have now, Kiel?” the Magister asked. “I will not let myself be controlled! Not by Dr. Verity, not by Jonathan Porterhouse, not by anyone. How else do you propose to free us all, if not this? Destroy all writers on this world?”
“Of course not!” Kiel said quickly. “But—”
“I cannot let this injustice stand, apprentice. I cannot and will not.”
As bad as things seemed before, this was twenty miles beyond that. Bethany concentrated on breathing in and out, desperate for someone, anyone to tell her that everything would be okay, that this wasn’t happening—that she was dreaming or imagining it, or living out some kind of waking nightmare.
“There must be another way,” Kiel said, holding his hands up for calm. The Magister sighed, dropping the Kiel Gnomenfoot book he was holding to his side.
And that’s when Bethany realized that there might be a way out.
They were both right here, after all. With the book so close, maybe she could just grab it, then jump both Kiel and the Magister back into the story! At this point, even if they still knew they were characters, at least that was worlds better than unleashing every fictional character ever into the real world!
But to do that, she’d need to keep them talking, and paying attention to anything other than what she was about to do.
“You have no idea how many stories there are,” Bethany told the Magister, her eyes everywhere but the book in his hand. “It would take us years to free all the characters. Centuries, maybe.”
“Then we shall start this very moment,” the Magister said, and laid the book down on a nearby table, then held out his hand to Bethany. “Help me. Help me right this enormous wrong. We shall free all the peoples of these worlds, and let them live their lives the way they wish, with no one telling them otherwise.”
Bethany bit her lip and took a step forward. “Can I . . . think about it?” It was so close now, just a few feet away. She could almost jump for it at this point—
The Magister’s eyes narrowed, and the Kiel Gnomenfoot book burst into flames, leaving nothing but a blackened spot on the table. No!
“I believe you may not be treating this request seriously,” he said, his tone sliding down in temperature. “Perhaps you should take some time to consider it, along with Jonathan Porterhouse.”
“Don’t do this,” Bethany pleaded, but her feet had already begun to sink into the floor. She gasped, trying desperately to stop herself, but the marble floor felt like quicksand. The more she struggled, the faster she sank. “Please! Let me go, and I can still fix all of this!”
“I could just siphon your power from you,” the Magister told her as she descended. “Simply free these worlds myself. But then I would be no different from a writer, taking away your choice.” His eyes glowed as he stared at her. “I will give you time to make your decision, and hope you choose correctly. For both our sakes.”
And with that, Bethany’s head sank into the floor, and everything went dark.
CHAPTER 16
All the years of boredom, math tests, gym classes, working at the library, and imagining exciting worlds that he’d never be able to visit—all those years had been worth it.
First of all, Owen was Kiel Gnomenfoot. That still made him tingle all over with awesomeness.
Second, Charm, Charm, was here, right next to him. Well, pushing a cabinet into the spot where the door had been previously with her superstrong robot arm, but still, close enough!
And third, he was about to fight robot soldiers. With magic.
“Ready?” Charm said, clicking her ray guns on in a tough, awesome way. “I’d prefer not to have to do all the work this time. Try to hold up your end of the fight, will you?”
“You take the ones on the left. I got the ones on the right,” Owen told her, grinning. He took out his wands and aimed them at the door. Now what spell should he use?
Spells? . . . Uh-oh. He didn’t know any spells. Yet.
“Actually, give me one minute,” he said, and turned around to where the Magister’s spell book sat halfway across the room.
“What?” Charm shouted, just as the cabinet exploded inward, covering them both in wood fragments. Laser beams blasted through the doorway, exploding all over the room and incinerating whatever they touched. None had hit the spell book yet, but it was only a matter of time.
That just confirmed exactly what Owen needed to do. Something heroic.
“Cover me!” he yelled, since that’s the kind of thing that one yelled in this type of situation. “I’m going to grab the spell book and hit them with something huge!”
“WHAT?” Charm shouted again. She fired her ray guns frantically through the door. “Don’t be stupid! You’re not even using a shield spell!”
“Who needs one?” Owen told her, then ran in a crouch toward the middle of the room.
Lasers hit the floor all around him, some just inches away, but Owen barely even noticed them. All he could think about were the readers, the thousands of readers who were on the edge of their seats, watching him do something incredibly stupid and dangerous and not even get touched.
This must be making Bethany crazy!
“They’re coming in!” Charm shouted. “I have to fall back!”
Owen glanced behind him at the door, where red eyes glowed from the smoke-filled hallway. Science Soldiers! He almost stopped moving, he wanted so badly to see what they actually looked like. But Charm shoved him forward, firing behind her as she ran.
“You useless magic-spewing pile of winged-cat droppings!” she yelled, smacking him with the back of her human hand. “This is what I meant by me doing all the work!”
If anything, she actually looked even cuter when she screamed like that. Owen flashed her a grin, then pushed himself the last few feet to the spell book, which miraculously had remained untouched, despite its pedestal being riddled with burn marks from the lasers. He yanked the book down and held a hand out over it, just as Kiel had always done. Give me a powerful and impressively cool spell to use on the robots! he thought.
A golden glow flooded through his body, like chicken noodle soup when you were sick in the middle of winter. Owen almost gasped. It just felt so right. All his life, he’d been waiting for something like this, and finally, finally it was here.
“Stand back,” he told Charm, then stood up in the middle of the laser fire. “SCIENCE SOLDIERS! I will return thee to the metal pits from whence you came!”
“Are you insane?” Charm hissed, yanking at his cloak to pull him down.
“Insanely awesome,” he told her, then winked.
Kiel always winked.
Five Science Soldiers entered the room, their lasers firing everywhere. For just a second Owen stopped to marvel at how cool the robots were. They’d evolved throughout the series, starting as just plain metal humanlike robots, but by book two, Dr. Verity began inventing new types. There’d been the Science Spies, who looked exactly like humans, and the Science Police, metallic robots in uniforms who stood on every corner of every Magisteria town in book five, watching for any hint of magic or rebellion.
But these . . . these were Science Soldiers, the most dangerous of them all. Their entire bodies were weapons, bombs ready to explode as a last resort, taking out anything nearby. Their arms were basically laser rifles with hands, those hands each holding more laser rifles. And their eyes could see through anything but metal, scanning constantly for magical energy.
Honestly, they’d have actually been pretty scary if Owen hadn’t known they’d never managed to hit either Kiel or Charm in any of the six books so
far.
“I’ve got just the thing for you, my friends,” he told them, raising his hands. “A little spell called Explosion of Fiery Greatness!”
“You said that was too powerful !” Charm hissed from right beside him. “You’ll kill us both!”
“I’ve got this,” Owen told her, then ran through the spell in his mind. “Hope you like your explosions ENORMOUS!” he shouted at the robots, the spell’s energy coursing through him. He raised his hands, then released the power straight at the robots.
And then everything exploded into fire and chaos and awesome.
CHAPTER 17
Jonathan Porterhouse’s basement wasn’t much of a dungeon. If the Magister had wanted them to suffer, he should have checked to make sure he wasn’t dropping them into what looked like a movie theater, only with comfier seats. Three rows faced a large screen at one end, with a projection room at the other.
Bethany sat in one of the cushy chairs, her eyes on the floor, deliberately trying not to look at the clearly terrified Mr. Porterhouse, who sat two seats down from her, his eyes wide and locked on her. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say: There wasn’t a much more awkward conversation than trying to explain that an author’s fictional characters had attacked him in his own house because you were half-fictional yourself, and your friend had wanted to meet them, but then they’d escaped using your power.
Except maybe explaining that now one of his characters wanted to free every other fictional character ever invented into the world, which might be fine if it were just Sherlock Holmeses or Gandalfs, but got a little questionable when you started talking about aliens, dragons, vampires, and other people-devouring characters.
“So,” Bethany finally said. “I hear the books have sold well?”
“You have no idea how they end, do you?” Mr. Porterhouse whispered, his eyes flashing to the ceiling.
Bethany slowly shook her head. “I, uh, haven’t actually read any of them.”