Valerie awoke as dawn rose over the mountains. In spite of the chilly night, she had decided to sleep on a lawn chair rather than face her brother's concern. He was sure to sense that something was wrong, and she couldn't handle any questions. But she couldn't put it off any longer, so she crept back to her room and into her bed without waking Henry or his dad. Was Thai back in the driver's seat, or was Tan was still running the show?

"Val, you awake?" Cyrus whispered, appearing next to her on her bed. His golden hair was messy and his clothes were rumpled.

"Did you find out anything about the woman who attacked Zaki?"

He shook his head. "I'm not here about that. Something horrible has happened. It's Kanti."

Henry sat up in bed. "What is it?"

"We don't know," Cyrus said miserably. "We were going through picture after picture of Conjurors who had a history of working with the Fractus, and we both fell asleep. When I woke up, she was surrounded by this mist of sticky threads, like she was inside a cocoon."

"Is she—alive?" Henry whispered.

"Yes, her heart is beating. But we don't know what to do—we can't cut through the threads with any tool on the Globe. Her parents came and took her back to their castle in Elsinore. They're going to bring in the best doctors to check on her."

"I can't believe this," Valerie said.

"It has to be the Fractus," Henry said, and he set his jaw. Instead of falling apart, as she expected, his eyes turned steely. "I'm going to find whoever did this to her and make them reverse it."

She nodded. Any shred of doubt she had about leaving was gone.

"Please tell us if you hear anything more," she said to Cyrus, who nodded.

"I'll see what I can find out and will let you both know."

A knock on the door woke up Joe, and Cyrus disappeared. Zaki and Chisisi were waiting for them, so Valerie and Henry quickly showered and changed.

In the hotel's restaurant, they discussed their plans over breakfast. Thai was nowhere to be seen. It troubled her that she hadn't been able to talk to him again after Tan had taken over—to make sure he was okay.

"It's a long hike. We will need to travel quickly all day to make it there by nightfall," Zaki said.

"When the sun sets and rises, the bonds holding the magic on Earth are the weakest, so we must depart immediately to make it on time," Chisisi explained.

"And spending the night in the wilderness is not as romantic as it seems. Especially for a modern man like myself who values a flushing toilet," Zaki added.

"It goes without saying that I'm coming with you," Joe said to Henry, and Valerie could see the quiet strength behind his tired eyes.

"What about Thai?" Valerie asked nervously. "We can't leave without him."

"We don't have to," Chisisi said, nodding toward the window.

Thai walked out of the woods and toward the hotel. He held his hand to his temples, and in that gesture she guessed how weary he was. Regaining control must have been a struggle.

After checking out of the hotel, the group headed into the woods. Zaki walked confidently, without once checking a compass. At first, she couldn't understand how he could be so certain about the way, but then she sensed it. Power hummed around her, and the pull of magic drawing drew her northeast.

Henry and his dad hung a little behind, murmuring to each other. She gave them some time to talk alone, and caught up to Thai, who was walking with Chisisi.

"Rough night?" she asked.

"What do you think?" he snapped, and sped up to walk beside Zaki.

"Your young man aches to accompany you," Chisisi said. "It will be doubly painful for him to watch you go this second time. I remember his grief when you left last time."

"But we were just friends then."

He raised his eyebrows, but said no more. Around noon, the group stopped for lunch, which Zaki and Chisisi pulled out of their hiking packs. Valerie forced herself to eat her sandwich, but her stomach was churning.

She figured that she was probably anxious about Kanti, or Jet, or Thai, but none of those reasons seemed right. It was as if there was an itch she couldn't scratch, but she tried to shrug it off. Maybe it was a result of her exhaustion. The hike would be difficult even if she was well, but as weak as she was now, her feet had begun feeling like they were filled with lead miles ago.

"You doing okay?" Thai asked as they packed up the remains of their lunch and resumed their walk.

"A little tired, but I'll be fine soon."

"I'm sorry about before. It was hard to have Tan take over last night. If he wasn't a part of me, I would have hit him."

She smiled. "I was tempted to do that myself. But I didn't think you'd appreciate the black eye the next day."

"I don't know what's wrong with him. Before Venu, he was always so happy, like a little kid. Now, there's this darkness, and it scares me. Because if he's capable of all this rage and hate, then maybe I am, too, you know?"

"No, Thai. I know you both, and as much as I care about Tan, at some point, you turned into very different people."

He grabbed her hand. She squeezed it, and the thrill of the contact gave her a jolt of energy.

"I can't believe that I won't be able to touch you after today," he said, his intense gaze making her feel like they were the only two people on the planet. "At least until I'm on the Globe by your side."

Cyrus cleared his throat, and Thai dropped her hand. She turned around and saw him staring at them.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

"How's Kanti?" Henry interrupted.

Cyrus gave himself a little shake. "She's better, I guess. The doctors say that she's breathing and her heart rate is normal. They're bringing healers from around the Globe to see what they can do to help her."

"I have to see her," Henry said, and he started to walk faster.

Ahead, Zaki and Chisisi had stopped. When the group caught up to them, Valerie saw that they had reached a deep crack in the earth. Chisisi explained, "We'll need to rappel down the cliff wall of this ravine. Our hike is going to be much more difficult from here on out."

Quickly and efficiently, Zaki uncoiled a long rope and anchored it on a nearby tree. He set up the harness and demonstrated to everyone how to rappel. Valerie's hands started to sweat.

Her brother squeezed her arm. "It'll be fun. This is a minor adventure compared to the Devil's Pool, right? And I'll be waiting for you at the bottom."

She nodded, and then watched first Joe, then Henry, quickly rappel down the wall and out of sight. Thai gave her a hug. "Your turn. I'll be watching from the top, too."

Zaki hooked her into the harness, and she began to descend as he had shown her. At first, she only let herself move slowly, but as she gained confidence, she let herself fall faster, enjoying the wind rushing past her face.

Thai, Chisisi, and Zaki joined them at the bottom of the ravine. It was shadowed in the narrow crevice, and a river ran through the middle. It was tame where they were now, but she could see down a ways that the water was white with little waves.

"We're not going to have to swim in this river, are we?" she asked apprehensively.

"No, we'll use climbing gear where we must so that we don't fall in the water. These rapids would be dangerous for even the strongest swimmer," Zaki said, more serious now than she'd seen him before.

The group was much quieter as they walked through the ravine. It was cool and damp, and the familiar squeezing sensation that gripped her whenever she was in a tight space returned. It reminded her of walking through the tunnel that led to the launch chamber inside the Great Pyramid, and of the foster home where she had been locked in a cabinet under the sink whenever she was bad. She shuddered at the memory.

Thai reached for her hand again, and the tension in her muscles relaxed a little. After all, she wasn't alone down here. Some of the people she trusted most in the universe were by her side.

A mile or so later, the river widened, leaving only a narrow patch of land on one side of the ravine. Zaki put a harness on and grabbed a rope.

"I will test the route and set an anchor rope up there," he said, pointing to a ledge a hundred meters down and a good ways up the wall of the ravine.

They waited, watching silently as Zaki made his way up. At one point, he nearly slipped, and she let out a quiet breath of relief as he regained his footing.

"This is a tough climb," Henry said. "But Zaki knows what he's doing." But he was absently chewing his thumbnail again.

The rest of Zaki's climb went smoothly, and he made it to the ledge and set up the anchor.

"You're shaking," Thai said quietly to her.

"I thought he might slip. I'm just relieved."

"I will go next and mark where you should place your hands and feet," Chisisi said.

Chisisi used chalk to mark his hand and footholds, and she was relieved that she wouldn't have to grope for the best spot like Zaki had.

"It will be much less dangerous for the rest of us now that the rope is in place and the best handholds are marked," Joe assured her. "Henry and I will go ahead of you to test the route."

She watched closely as they went across, noticing the spots that seemed slippery or hard to hold. Father and son made it across safely, and she let out a breath that she didn't know she'd been holding.

"I'll be right behind you," Thai whispered in her ear, sending a pleasant shiver down her neck.

Carefully, Valerie began her climb. She tested each spot before she put her weight on it, as she had seen the others do, forcing herself to ignore her trembling muscles. It was frustrating to be so weak.

She was more than halfway there when her foot slipped and she fell toward the water. Abruptly the rope went taut and pulled her back against the wall of the ravine. She crashed into it, hitting the side of her face. The spray from the rushing water hit her shins. Adrenaline shot through her body, and she was grateful for it. It gave her the burst of energy she badly needed to make it back up.

She scrabbled against the slippery rock wall, grasping for handholds. She heard voices calling down to her, but she couldn't make out the words over the crash of the water against the rocks. Chisisi's chalk marks were several meters above her, useless down where she was. At last, she found a good hold for first her right hand, then her left. Carefully, she pulled her way up, forcing herself to breathe slowly. She imagined that this was one of Gideon's exercises for her, to test her courage and strength without using her magic.

She focused on finding the next handhold, to the exclusion of everything else. After a few tense minutes, she reached the first of Chisisi's chalk marks. Slowly, she inched up to the ledge, and when she was close enough, Chisisi pulled her up the rest of the way.

As her adrenaline subsided, her old exhaustion pulled at her consciousness. But she forced herself to stay alert as Thai made the climb. He was quick, and soon, he was by her side.

"You almost gave me a heart attack," he said, wiping some blood off of her face from the small cuts on her forehead and cheek.

"Don't be such a drama queen," she teased him.

"Please tell me we're close," Henry said, putting a protective hand on her back. She couldn't help the exhaustion that seemed to be coming off of her in waves.

"We are. The most difficult part is past," Chisisi assured them.

"How do you figure?" she asked. The ledge they were standing on seemed disconnected from everything—a long climb up or down, depending on where they were going.

A strange beating sound echoed faintly down the ravine, and a familiar tingle made the hair on her arms stand on end—danger.

"We're being followed," she said.

Zaki and Chisisi glanced down the ravine, but no one was visible yet.

"The door to the chamber is here," Zaki said, running his hand over the bumpy rock wall. "But you won't be able to travel from here for another hour, at sunset."

"So we'll be standing here exposed until then?" Thai asked.

"Not exactly," Zaki said. "Henry, Valerie, press your hands here." He pointed to an indentation in the wall, and they did as they were told.

A crack in the rock flashed blue, and they could see the outline of a door. Together they pushed, and the rock slid back to reveal a dark cave. She shuddered, dreading the walk through the close darkness.

"Now this is a little more worthy of the kind of adventure taken by such brave souls as ourselves," Zaki said, making Valerie smile in spite of herself.

Zaki and Chisisi led the way, and they could dimly see in the dark cave from the light coming in at the opening. On the walls were elaborate patterns that reminded her of waves. It gave the cave the sensation of movement, as if they were sliding toward the darkness at the end of the tunnel.

Zaki stopped at a rough doorway. Beyond it, the light from the entrance didn't penetrate. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket along with a bottle of fluid. He poured the fluid into a groove in the wall, and then lit it.

Fire raced along the wall and then curved back, illuminating a circular room inside a ring of flames. When the ring was complete, the hum of power that had resonated at a low frequency inside her mind suddenly increased. The effect made her pleasantly lightheaded. The fire reflected off of a pool of water at the bottom, which had steam rising from it.

"What is this place?" she whispered, as if speaking too loud would shatter the incredible beauty of the spot.

"Long ago, it was one of the portals to the Globe. But someone stole a disc that channels the magic of this place, and it hasn't worked since. Several years ago, I used my considerable wit and strength to recover it," Zaki said, pulling out a stone from his pouch with a flourish and handing it to her.

It was perfectly round and smooth, other than a deep depression in the center. The disc itself was humming with power, somehow synchronized with the humming in the room.

"How can you be sure it's the right disc?" Thai asked. "It doesn't look special to me."

"It's not how it looks, it's how it feels," Zaki replied.

She handed it to Thai, and she knew when he felt its power by his sharp gasp. "It belongs here," he said.

"This hot spring isn't very deep. I need to swim to the bottom of it and put the disc in place. Then Valerie and Henry's magic will reactivate it, and at sunset they should be able to travel to the Globe," Zaki explained.

"Will it be like last time, where we steer a bubble with our minds?" she asked.

"No, this portal uses very different magic. No one has used it for hundreds of years, so I only know that you enter the water and emerge in a pool on the Globe. Azra knows where you will appear and will be waiting for you."

With that, Zaki pulled out a mask that would allow him to see underwater, struck a Superman pose, and dove into the pool. He came up for air several times.

"I'm searching the bottom for the right spot. I know where it should be, but underwater it is hard to tell," he explained.

When the disc was put in place, the hot spring lit up, glowing from beneath. The sight took Valerie's breath away. The water was pure and clear, and if it weren't for the light reflecting off the water, she might have thought that there was no water at all. She could see every rock, every groove at the bottom of the pool.

Henry's jaw hung open and Joe held his hand against his mouth. It was the first time that either of them had witnessed magic. It was one thing to learn about it through stories, but another thing to experience it.

"This is really happening," Henry whispered. His father gripped him in a close hug.

"I know this isn't really goodbye, son, but I will miss you all the same," Joe said. Then he hugged Valerie. "I can't wait to know you better. Please take care of my boy."

She gripped him tightly. "I swear I'll protect him with my life."

"We'll take care of each other," Henry said, with a trace of annoyance.

She laughed. "Agreed. Though on the Globe, I could totally beat you in an arm wrestling match any day of the week."

"We'll see."

"How sweet," Zunya's voice cut through the room.

Her heart rate immediately sped up, but she forced herself to swallow her fear. "You're too late," she said. "We're going to leave."

"My mistake. Is it sunset already?"

The beating sound Valerie had noticed earlier was much louder now, and wind swept through the cave, kicking up dust and making her cough. Footsteps raced through the cave. It was definitely more than a couple of people.

"Children, step back," Chisisi commanded.

"Yes, children, hide like little mice," Zunya taunted.

"We're here to help," she said, straightening her spine.

"Val, do what Chisisi says," Cyrus said, appearing beside her. "Trust me, he can handle himself."

Four figures dressed in black burst into the room. Valerie barely had time to register that one of them was the dark-haired woman who had attacked them on the highway before complete mayhem broke out. She barely managed to follow the fight, because Chisisi and Zaki moved so quickly that she couldn't believe they weren't using magic. Expertly, they ducked and weaved away from blows from their attackers. Then, with quick jabs to certain pressure points, first one, then another, dropped to the ground, unconscious.

"Idiots, get up!" Zunya hissed.

A sudden splash in the pool alerted Valerie to the fact that the dark-haired woman had jumped into the water. She swam straight to the bottom and pulled out the disc. The pool turned dark as the magic was extinguished.

Zaki dove in after her, and Valerie listened as they grappled in the water. It was difficult to see with only the ring of fire lighting the room. Suddenly, the woman leaped out of the water and began running down the hallway to the exit of the cave. Valerie and Thai chased after her, and Thai caught the edge of the woman's shirt. She tripped, dropping the disc, but was quickly back up and running.

Outside on the ledge, Valerie saw what was causing the noise and wind—a helicopter hovered unsteadily in the canyon. The woman made an incredible leap off the ledge and into the helicopter, which immediately rose into the sky.

"It's not over," Zunya said, but the immediate danger had passed.

"You underestimated us—again," she said, and he vanished.

"Guys?" Henry called, his voice wavering with emotion. Thai and Valerie picked up the disc and ran back to the chamber. Chisisi was giving Zaki CPR, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of their attackers.

"He has passed," Chisisi said, his voice trembling with grief. He rocked back on his heels, his hands hiding his face.

"She killed him? That can't be. I don't believe it!" Valerie said, and fell to her knees beside Zaki. She held her hands against his heart and tried to reach for her magic, the magic that saved Sanguina's life, but just like when she tried to help Ming, she couldn't touch it.

"Someone has to help him! What about Darling?" she cried.

"He's already gone, Val. No one can help him now," Cyrus said softly.

Chisisi made a choking sound as he tried to hold back a sob. Zaki was really gone.

"Young ones, you must go, now. It's what Zaki would have wanted," Chisisi said, no longer trying to hide the tears that coursed down his cheeks.

"We don't know who else might be coming. We can't lose any time," Thai added.

Chisisi took the disc and dove to the bottom of the hot spring. The water glowed again, but a dark stain of blood from a cut on Zaki's head stained the pure water.

Valerie hugged Joe and Chisisi, and then turned to Thai while Henry said a final goodbye to his father.

"I'm going to be with you before you know it," Thai said. "But I'd be lying if I didn't say that life will be hell without you by my side."

He crushed her to his chest and kissed her. It was quick but sweet, and when she pulled back, she saw the determination in his eyes. He would come to her, no matter what it took.

"I love you," she whispered, and he pulled her into his arms one last time.

"Me, too—truly and forever."