“You are doing the right thing,” Kyja said without an ounce of hesitation. “It’s all going to work out just fine with your sister.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Kathleen asked.
Kyja shrugged. She had no idea how she knew. She just did. It was like how she’d known what was wrong with the Weather Guardians. “See if you can get him horseback riding lessons when you get there. I think he might have a way with animals.”
Kathleen stared at her in disbelief, but she didn’t argue.
Just then, the bus began to slow down. Marcus sat up and rubbed his eyes. “What’s happening? Are we there yet?”
“No need to worry,” the bus driver called out as he brought the bus to a shuddering stop with a high-pitched whine of the brakes. “Looks like there’s been some kind of accident. We should be past it in a few minutes. Please stay in your seats.”
“Mommy?” Jerrick jerked awake, confused by the unfamiliar surroundings.
“It’s okay, baby.” Kathleen reached across Kyja and took her son into her arms, careful of his injured arm.
“Where are we?” Jerrick asked, looking around. One of the colored stones fell out of his fist onto his mother’s lap.
“This is beautiful,” Kathleen said, admiring the large, red stone. “It can’t be real but . . .”
She tried to hand it to Kyja, but Kyja pushed it back into her palm. “It’s just a toy. Jerrick can keep it.”
As Kyja closed Kathleen’s fingers around the gem, Marcus pressed his face to the tinted window of the bus.
“I don’t see any accident.”
Kyja joined him and looked outside. A line of cars was stopped in front of them, and she could see men with flashlights making their way along the line of cars.
Marcus pulled sharply back from the window and looked around. “Something’s wrong!”
“What is it?” Kyja followed his gaze but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Is it the Dark Circle?”
“I don’t know. I just . . .” He looked out at the highway, where the men with the flashlights were getting closer. All at once, he climbed out of his seat. “We need to get off the bus now.”
Alarmed, Kathleen looked up from her son. “Is it the people you’re running from?”
“Bad men?” Jerrick asked, clinging to his mother.
Marcus scooted to the front of the bus with Kyja close behind him.
“We need to get off,” he told the driver.
“Now?” The bus driver, an older man with gray hair and a Middle-Eastern accent, gave Marcus and Kyja an incredulous look. “I can’t let you children off the bus in the center of the highway. Where are your parents?”
By now, Kyja had caught Marcus’s panic. She could see the men outside only a few cars away. They were showing something to the occupants of each car as they shined their lights inside. They appeared to be wearing some kind of uniform. “Please,” she begged. “Open the door.”
The driver looked from her panicked face to the uniformed men outside, and his lips tightened. “Are you in trouble with the police? Did you run away from home?”
Marcus reached for the big metal lever which opened the bus door, but the driver was too fast. “No,” he said. “You will not get off my bus in the middle of the road.”
Still gripping the door handle with his right hand, he waved his left hand at the men in front of the bus. “Over here!” he shouted.
One of the men outside looked up from the car he was inspecting. He grabbed the elbow of the man beside him and pointed to the bus.
“It’s him!” Marcus cried.
“Who?” Kyja asked, feeling as trapped as she had in the net.
“The man in the bus station.” Marcus turned and hurried toward the back of the bus.
“What can I do?” Kathleen asked as Marcus and Kyja reached her seat.
“Those men outside the bus aren’t the police,” Marcus hissed. “If they find Kyja and me, they’ll kill us.”
At the front of the bus, the door swung open with a whoosh of air. “Back there!” the driver shouted.
The man in the dark suit flashed some kind of badge as he stepped onto the bus. Marcus and Kyja dodged out of sight into a row of seats.
“This way,” Kathleen whispered. She unlocked the emergency latch on her window and pushed it open. “I’ll get their attention while you two go out the window.”
She leaned over Jerrick. “Can you help me, baby? Can you help Kyja and Marcus?”
Jerrick had tears in his eyes, and his lips were trembling, but he nodded.
“Hide down here,” Kathleen told her son. “Under the seat.”
As Jerrick ducked under the seat in front of him, Kathleen jumped up. “My son!” she screamed. “Where is my son?”
The two men at the front of the bus both turned in her direction.
“Ma’am,” said the first. “If you could just sit back—”
“Someone took my son!” Kathleen shrieked. “Everyone please help me find him.”
Some the people on the bus remained in their seats, but most of them got up and began to look around.
“Everyone return to your seats!” the second man shouted.
“Now,” whispered Kathleen, giving a quick backward glance.
Blocked from view by the standing people, Marcus and Kyja scooted across the aisle and into the row of seats where Jerrick was hiding. “Bye-bye,” Jerrick whispered, biting back his tears.
“Bye, sweetie,” Kyja said. After a quick glance to make sure Marcus agreed, she emptied several of the gems into Kathleen’s purse and gave Jerrick a quick squeeze. “Tell your mom to buy you a horse.”
In the front of the bus, Kathleen was still shouting, but the men were pushing their way through the aisle—knocking people right and left.
“Go,” Marcus said.
Keeping her head low, Kyja pushed her legs over the ledge of the window and slid out. She looked both ways, and although she could see more men with lights on the way, there was no one immediately beside the bus. Hanging from her fingertips, she released her grip on the window and dropped to the slushy street.
Although the drop was farther than she expected, she managed to land safely. “Come on,” she whispered up to Marcus.
Marcus handed his staff to Kyja through the window and looked out. “I can’t get my feet around,” he said.
“Then go head first,” Kyja said. “I’ll catch you.”
The sound of men shouting was close now. Inside the bus, Kathleen gave a loud squawk, and Marcus turned to look back.
“Come on,” Kyja said.
Leaning over the edge of the window, Marcus somersaulted through. He nearly managed to hang on as his feet swung over his head, but at the last minute his grip failed, and his fingers slipped from the bus.
Kyja darted forward as Marcus started to fall. Holding up her hands, she grabbed for his body. He was much heavier than she expected, and they both collapsed to the street.
“Are you okay?” Marcus asked, pulling himself off her.
“I think so,” she said. “Just lost my breath.”
“That’s good,” a silky voice said. “I’d hate to have my two prizes injured before I kill them myself.”
A tall, thin man stepped out of the shadows.
“Bonesplinter,” Marcus growled. He turned to Kyja. “Jump to Farworld. Now!”
“I don’t know how,” Kyja said. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the gray in-between world. If part of her was caught there, maybe she could push herself back and take Marcus with her the way he’d brought her.
“Not this time.” The man closed his fingers around Kyja’s arm. His grip was ice-cold, and suddenly Kyja couldn’t think at all. The pain in her head flared, and her mind seemed frozen.
“Let her go!” Marcus shouted. He swung a fist at Bonesplinter, but the man knocked him aside like an insect.
“Your world-jumping days are over,” he said, focusing his piercing gaze on Kyja.<
br />
She tried to pull from his grasp, but his fingers were like stone.
Lying on the wet asphalt, Marcus held out his hands toward Bonesplinter. “Air like bread dough thicken, please.”
“What are you doing?” Bonesplinter said, his eyes narrowing.
One of the men in the bus shined his flashlight out the window. “Over here!” he shouted. Suddenly he cried out in pain and disappeared back inside the bus. “Ouch! The kid bit me.”
“Bonesplinter fly off in the breeze,” Marcus finished. At Marcus’s words, a huge gust of wind lifted Bonesplinter from his feet and threw him across the highway.
As her arm broke free of the man’s grip, Kyja’s mind cleared. Men with lights came running from all directions. As Kyja watched, one of them changed into a snake, his suit ripping to shreds.
“Jump,” Marcus shouted. “Jump!”
Kyja closed her eyes and grasped her amulet. Having done it twice before, she effortlessly found the in-between world. There she saw Riph Raph and herself floating in gray nothingness. As she took hold of her own shoulders and Riph Raph’s wing and pushed, she felt herself slam back into her body. She was falling, but she wasn’t going to fall alone. As she dropped, she reached out. For a moment, there was nothing. Then she found Marcus’s rope and closed her fingers tightly around it.
Chapter 44
The Windlash Mountains
This time Marcus was ready for the inside-out feeling which twisted his stomach as he traveled from one world to another, and the burning feeling on his shoulder. What he wasn’t prepared for was the thick snow which instantly numbed his cheeks and nose, or the howling wind that blasted every inch of exposed skin with tiny slivers of ice. He twisted around to find Kyja leaning into the storm and trying to pull the hood of her cloak over her head. The wind ripped it off again almost as soon as she got it up, and she had to grip it tightly with both hands to keep it on.
“Where are we?” Marcus shouted, the words ripped from his mouth by the ferocious wind. But the truth came to him with a thudding dread even before Kyja answered. The sharp spires of ice-covered rock rising hundreds of feet into the air and the snow which came up to Kyja’s waist and Marcus’s chest could only be one place, and it was his fault they were there.
“The Windlash Mountains!” Kyja cupped her hands to her mouth to be heard above the storm. The gale blew down the hood of her cloak and whipped her hair to and fro across her face. The fear in her eyes was clear. “We have to go back.”
“No!” Marcus shouted. “The Dark Circle will be waiting for us.”
“We don’t have any choice.” She wiped snow from her face with quickly reddening fingers. “Where’s Riph Raph?”
A blue head popped out of the pocket of her cloak, looked sharply around, and blinked. “What did Marcus do now?”
Marcus grimaced as he searched the exposed shelf of rock where they’d landed. The side of the mountain disappeared up into the clouds above them and dropped away at an alarming rate below. He didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if they’d landed even a hundred feet to their left.
“This way,” he called. Using his staff, he tried to get to his feet, but the wind was too strong, and he had to crawl toward a small tree which slanted sharply away from the side of the mountain. Despite his gloves, he was quickly starting to lose all feeling in his hands.
“No!” Kyja pulled on the back of his cloak. “You don’t understand. We can’t stay here. There are stories about these mountains—about the terrible things that live here. No one comes into the Windlash Mountains. Especially not during the winter. It’s death.”
Marcus spun around. “What else can we do?” he asked. “If we go back now, the Dark Circle will take us.”
“What if they follow us here?” Kyja’s face faded in and out through the blowing snow like an ice-caked phantom.
“If they could follow us, they would have,” Marcus said, his lungs aching from the cold. “I don’t think their door works like that. If we can wait here even for a few hours before jumping back, maybe they’ll be gone.”
Kyja hesitated, clearly torn between the two impossible decisions.
“Come on,” Marcus said, pounding his hand against his legs to stay warm.
“All right,” she said at last, looking worriedly around. “But only for an hour. Then we go back no matter what. This is a very bad place.”
* * *
“I th-thought you were supposed to be good at this,” Marcus groused to Riph Raph as the flame on the small stack of twigs and branches went out again.
“I’d like to see you make wet wood burn in a bank of snow,” Riph Raph snipped back. He blew another fireball, and a meager tongue of flame flickered up from the damp pile of wood. “If you didn’t keep getting us into these situations, you wouldn’t need me to get you out.”
“I don’t see y-you k-keeping the wind and snow out,” Marcus said. He held his shaking hands toward the fire, careful not to lose the fragile dome of protective air he had cast above them. “You’re no more use than a cheap book of m-matches.”
“If your magic is so good, why don’t you melt the snow while you’re at it?” Riph Raph said. “Or haven’t you learned that spell yet?”
“Stop it, you two,” Kyja said, glaring at both of them. “I really think we should go back now.”
“C-c-can’t,” Marcus stammered, his teeth chattering. “It h-hasn’t been an hour yet.”
“And you can’t keep this magic up much longer. Even I can see how it’s draining your strength.”
“I’m f-fine,” Marcus said, gritting his teeth. He’d never done
this much magic in one day before, and for some reason he didn’t understand, magic on Earth had taken much more energy than casting spells on Farworld. His body felt like it was one giant ice cube, and it was all he could do to keep his protection spell from collapsing. But he couldn’t let Kyja know that, or she’d demand they go back at once. “It’s just taking me a while to g-get the hang of this spell stuff. It’s much harder than k-keeping a st-stick from hitting me.”
“You’re doing great,” Kyja said from her spot against the trunk of the bent tree. “But we can’t stay here. There’s something wrong with this place. Don’t you feel it?”
Marcus closed his eyes. He did feel it. Ever since they’d holed up beneath the boughs of the little tree, the wind seemed to carry voices on it—one minute howling like a wolf, the next crying like a child or laughing like a lunatic. And it had only grown worse when he began using magic.
It felt as if something out in the blinding white storm could sense the spell he was casting. Shadows seemed to move out of the corners of his eyes, but when he turned to look, there was nothing there. Even the snow-covered ground appeared to somehow be sneaking up on them. But going back to Earth now would be handing themselves over to the Dark Circle. He had to hold on as long as he could and hope for the best.
“Did you see that?” Kyja cried.
“See what?” Marcus turned to look out into the storm. All he could see were the constantly changing patterns of blowing snow.
“There.” Kyja pointed her finger. “I saw something moving again. Only now I can’t quite . . .”
Marcus studied the shifting blanket of white. Surely nothing could survive in that bitter cold. And even if it could, there was nowhere to hide. Except for the spires of rock above them, everything was snow and ice.
“Are you sure the s-snow isn’t just p-playing t-t-tricks on your eyes?” Marcus stammered. The fire had gone out again, but he was too exhausted to ask Riph Raph to relight it.
“No. I’m not.” Kyja rubbed her reddened eyes with her palms. Master Therapass hadn’t given her any gloves, and her fingertips were nearly blue. “Please,” she said, blinking ice from her lashes, “can’t we just go back? I’d almost rather face the Dark Circle than whatever is up here with us. Even if I can’t see it, I can feel it. And I know you can too. It’s not just evil, either. It feels complet
ely unnatural.”
Marcus nodded. He couldn’t go on any longer anyway. His brain felt as frozen as his fingers and face. Just speaking was a monumental effort, and his grip on the protection spell was nearly gone. Something was sucking his strength away, and he didn’t think it was just the cold. “A-all r-r-ight,” he whispered. “G-go ah-head.”
Speaking drained the last of his energy, and he felt the protection spell slip away like water through his fingers. Instantly, the snow slashed down at them with a furious intensity—as though angry they’d managed to hold out against it as long as they had.
“Hang on,” Kyja said. “I’m going to—”
But her words were cut off by an explosion that shook the entire mountainside. All around them, the snow suddenly sprang to life. Icy limbs reached up from the ground and wrapped themselves around Marcus’s arms and legs.
“Jump,” he tried to scream, but as he opened his mouth, a drift of frigid, white snow slammed him to the ground, filling his mouth and throat with frozen fire. He struggled against it, but it was like trying to fight an avalanche. The last thing he saw before being covered completely was a ten-foot-high wall of ice and snow that rose up like a tidal wave, washing Kyja over the side of the mountain.
Chapter 45
Caverns and Cages
Marcus woke to the steady dripping of water. His arms and legs ached, and his face burned. He tried to sit up and immediately regretted it, as a dizzying pain drove him back to the ground. He opened his eyes, and for a moment, nothing changed. Then slowly, his vision adjusted to the faint light of a distant, sputtering candle.
He was in some kind of cavern. The dripping he’d heard was coming from icicles whose tops disappeared in the darkness. He was lying on a damp floor of cold, rough stone.
“Kyja?” he whispered. The effort of speaking started a coughing fit that tore at the inside of his throat. He tried again—louder this time. “Kyja, where are you?”
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